
GjyrigtaN?. 



COPYRIGHT DEPCSIR 



hlE CONTENTS 


or 


QuM/ff/W V 


IfllYVcLv 


ON <!NC 


SCfiOO? 




! . \ N ; . ■: . ■•■ ' ■ \ ! . ■ . 







THE CONTENTS OF 



HILDREN'S MINDS 



ON ENTERING SCHOOL 



BY 



/ 



G. STANLEY HALL, 

PRESIDENT CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS. 










NEW YORK AND CHICAGO: 






v H'ASH\ 



E. L. KELLOGG & CO, V 



is2£oy 



* i 



1S93. 



/ c 



h 



.HZ 

Published by kind permission of the author. Topic head- 
ings to aid the student have been added by the publishers. 



WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE 
HISTORY OF EDUCATION? 



Allen's Historic Outlines of Education, - 15c. 

Browning's Aspects of Edttcation, - - 23c. 

11 Educational Theories, - - 45c. 

Kf.llogg's Lifk of Pestalozzi, - - - 15c. 

Lang's Comenius, 15c. 

u Basedow, 15c. 

44 Rousseau and his " Emilie," - - 15c. 

u Horace Mann, 15c. 

14 Great Teachers of Four Centuries, - 23c. 

" Herbart and His Principles of Edu- 
cation, ------ 03c. 

Phelps' Life of David P. Page, - - - 15c. 

Quick's Educational Reformers, - - • 88c. 

Reinhart's History of Education, - - 23c. 



Net prices postpaid are given. Send for fall descriptive 
catalogne. 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., New York. 



Copyright 1893. 
By E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 

New York. 



HE CONTENTS OF CHILDREN'S MINDS 
ON ENTERING SCHOOL. 



Individuality of Children as Influenced by Surround- 
ings. — In October, I860, the Berlin Pedagogical Verein is- 
sued a circular inviting teachers to investigate the indi- 
viduality of children on entering the city schools so far 
as it was represented by ideas of their environment. 
Individuality in children, it was said, differed in Berlin 
not only from that of children in smaller cities or in the 
country, but surroundings caused marked differences in 
culture-capacity in different wards. Although concepts 
from the environment were only one important cause of 
diversity of individuality, this cause once determined, 
inferences could be drawn to other causes. 

How Concepts of City and Country Children Differ. — 
It was expected that, although city children would have 
an experience of moving things much larger than coun- 
try children, they would have noticed very little of 
things at rest; that to names like /ores/, e.g., they, with 
an experience only with parks, would attach a very 

Vorstellungskreis der Berliner Kinder beim Eintritt in die 
Schule. Berlin Stadtisclies Jalirbuch 1870, pp. 59-77. 

3 



4 The Contents of Children's Minds 

different set of concepts from those of the country child. 
The fact that country children who entered city schools 
behind city children caught up with them so readily 
was due to the fact that early school methods as well as 
matter of instruction were better adapted to country 
children. Conversation with children in collecting the 
statistical materials would, it was predicted, tend to in- 
teresting and surprising results. When asked what 
mountain (Berg) they had ever seen, all the girls in an 
upper class of a grammar-school said Pfefferberg, the 
name of a beer-house near by; and, for all, Berg was a 
place of amusement. This would cause an entire group 
of geographical ideas to miscarry. Others, knowing the 
words pond or lake only from artificial ponds or lakes 
in the park, thought these words designated water 
holders, which might or might not have water in them. 
A preliminary survey showed that many children in 
each city school had never seen important monuments, 
squares, gardens, etc., near their own home and school- 
house, and few knew the important features of their 
city at large. With the method of geographical in- 
struction in vogue that begins with the most immediate 
surroundings and widens in concentric circles to city, 
county, fatherland, etc., these gaps in knowledge made 
havoc. School-walks and excursions, object-lesson mate- 
rial, as well as the subject-matter of reading, writing, 
etc./ should be regulated by the results of such inquiry. 

The Tests Wanting in Completeness and Accuracy. — 
This circular, which was accompanied by a list of points 
for inquiry, ended by invoking general and hearty per- 
sonal co-operation. It was not sufficient to have seen a 
hare, a squirrel, etc., but the hare must have been seen 
running wild, the squirrel in a tree, sheep grazing, the 



On Entering School. 5 

stork on its nest, the swan swimming, chickens with the 
hen, the lark must be singing, the butterfly, snail, lark, 
etc., must be in a natural environment. The returns 
for 13 of the 84 schools of Berlin were worthless. 
Other tests suggested, but not reported on, were colors, 
knowledge of money, weights and measures ; how many 
have seen a soldier, sailor, peasant, Jew, Moor, or a 
shoemaker, carpenter, plasterer, watchmaker, printer, 
painter, etc., at work ; how many knew how bread was 
made out of grain ; where stockings came from ; how 
many could repeat correctly a spoken sentence, say a 
poem by heart, sing something, repeat a musical note, 
have attended a concert, have a cat, dog, or bird, etc. 
As an essential object of these inquiries was to distin- 
guish the concepts which children brought to school 
from those acquired there, returns made some weeks or 
months after the children entered school had little 
value, yet were worked up with the rest. The very 
slight interest shown by teachers in making these in- 
quiries was also remarked. As only about one third of 
a minute for each question to each child was the time 
taken, there could be no collateral questioning, so that 
confusion and misunderstanding no doubt invalidated 
many returns. 

The Basis "for the Following Tables 10,000 Children.— 
The sources of error to be constantly guarded against 
are errors in counting, imagination, or embarrassment 
of the children. When the answers were taken in class 
nearly twice as many children asserted knowledge of 
the concept as when they were taken in groups of 8 
to 10. Nearly half the boys and more than half the 
girls on entering school had never seen to know by 
name any one of the following conspicuous objects in 



The Contents of Children's Minds 



Berlin : Lustgarten, Unter den Linden, Wilhelm's 
Platz, Gensdarmenmarkt, or the Brandenburg Gate. 
From the large number of returns, those from 2238 chil- 
dren just entering school seem to have been pretty com- 
plete for 75 questions ; but other returns were usable for 
a part of the questions, and some for other questions, 
so that in the tables the number of children is recorded 
on the uniform basis of 10,000. Arranged in the order 
of frequency, the first Berlin table is as follows : 

What Number of Children Out of 10,000 have Vari- 
ous Ideas? 



1. Dwelling, .... 902G 32. 

2. Father's business, . . 8945 33. 

3. Name of father, . . 8517 34. 

4. Firmament, .... 8145 35. 

5. Tempest (day), . .7873 36. 

6. Rainbow, .... 7770 37. 

7. Sphere, 7623 38. 

8. Two 7435 39. 

9. Three, 7399 40. 

10. Four, 7265 41. 

11. Hail, 7015 42. 

12. Cube, 6957 43. 

13. Potato-field, . . . 6323 44. 

14. Moon, 6215 45. 

15. Swan, 6175 46. 

16. Butterfly, .... 6028 47. 

17. Clouds, 5925 48. 

18. Fish 5853 49. 

19. Unter den Linden, . 5590 50. 

20. Menagerie, .... 5496 51. 

21. Square, 5474 52. 

22. Evening sky, . . . 5384 53. 

23. Haseuheide, . . . 5121 54. 

24. Frog 5085 55. 

25. Circle, 4991 56. 

26. Snail, 4750 57. 

27. Sunset, 4625 58. 

28. Meadow, .... 4607 59. 

29. Alexander Sq 4306 60. 

30. Triangle, . . . .4182 61. 

31. Corn-field, .... 4062 62. 



Zoological Gardens, . 4075 
Frederick's Grove, . 3887 
Herd of sheep, . . 3870 
Pleasure Garden, . . 3861 

Forest 3646 

City Hall, .... 3615 
Morning sky, . . . 3592 

Squirrel, 3579 

Brandenburg Gate, . 3467 

Kreuzberg 3454 

Castle of King, . . 3423 

Village, 3374 

Tempest (night), . . 3347 
Mountain, .... 3248 
Museum, .... 3222 

Cuckoo, 3137 

Treptow, 3065 

Sunrise, 3(J52 

Geusdarmenrnarkt, . 2909 

Stork, 2887 

Palace of King, . . 2886 
Mushroom, .... 2855 

Oak 2641 

Plough 2(>30 

Sleet, 2493 

Moss, 2484 

Hare 2466 

Stralau 2453 

Harvest, 2368 

Dew, 2364 

Wilhelm's Platz, . . 2158 



On Entering School. 



63. 


Luke, .... 


. 2078 


70. 


Birch 


1318 


64. 


Arsenal, . . . 


. 1957 


71. 


Rummelsberg. . . 


1242 


65. 


Scotch fir, . . 


. 1828 


72. 


Park for Invalids, 


1135 


66. 


Lark, .... 


. 1796 


73. 


River, 


1122 


67. 


Reed 


. 1702 


74. 


Hazel shrub, . . 


907 


68. 


Willow, . . . 


. 1667 


75. 


Botanical Garden, 


527 


69. 


Whortleberry, . 


. . 1640 









Thus, e.g., out of 10,000 children, 9026 head the idea of 
dwellings, while but 527 had any idea of the Botanical 
Garden. The same returns otherwise presented are as 
f ollows : 

Classification of above with Reference to Sex and 
Origin. 











Children 


Children 


Children 


Children 






Boya. 


Girls. 


from 


from 


from 


alto- 










Families. 


Kinderg'n. Refuges. 


gether. 


1. 


Two, . . . 


. 7478 


7380 


7436 


8223 


7113 


7435 


2. 


Three, . . 


. 7478 


7298 


7418 


7355 


7344 


7399 


3. 


Four, . . . 


. 7279 


7247 


7224 


8258 


7067 


7265 


4. 


Triangle, 


. 4274 


4036 


4078 


5484 


4111 


4182 


5. 


Square, . . 


. 5424 


5537 


5230 


7484 


5681 


5474 


6. 


Area of circle, . 4750 


5312 


4818 


6645 


5081 


4991 


7. 


Sphere, . . 


. 7684 


7544 


7576 


8516 


7483 


7623 


8. 


Cube, . . . 


. 6971 


6970 


6800 


8064 


7159 


6957 


9. 


Moon, . . 


. 6043 


6438 


6067 


8000 


6144 


6215 


10. 


Sunrise, . . 


. 3410 


2590 


3194 


2710 


2633 


3052 


11. 


Sunset, . . 


. 4925 


4237 


4739 


4516 


4226 


4635 


12. 


Firmament, . 


. 8382 


7840 


8012 


8645 


8476 


8145 


13. 


Tempest (day), .7613 


8209 


7776 


9226 


7760 


7873 


14. 


Tempest(night), 3188 


3509 


3224 


4194 


3510 


3347 


15. 


Dew, . . . 


. 2331 


2395 


2455 


2323 


2032 


2364 


16. 


Clouds, . . 


. 6090 


5711 


5727 


6581 


6443 


5925 


17. 


Hail, . . . 


. 6G06 


7544 


7055 


7677 


6628 


7015 


18. 


Sleet, . . . 


. 2847 


2037 


2382 


2194 


3025 


2493 


19. 


Rainbow, 


. 7708 


7851 


7667 


9355 


7598 


7770 


20. 


Evening sky 


. 5567 


5148 


5303 


6065 


5450 


5384 


21. 


Morning sky 


, . 3497 


3715 


3545 


4128 


3580 


3592 


22. 


Hare, . . . 


. 2482 


2446 


2473 


3097 


2217 


2466 


23. 


Squirrel, . . 


. 3878 


3193 


3170 


4903 


4665 


3579 


24. 


Stork, . . 


. 3212 


2467 


2897 


3290 


2702 


2887 


25. 


Swan, . . 


. 6757 


5425 


5976 


7032 


6628 


6175 


26. 


Cuckoo, . 


. 3545 


2610 


3048 


4129 


3118 


3137 


27. 


Lark, . . . 


. 2220 


1249 


1739 


2258 


1848 


1796 





Children 


Children 


Children 


Children 


Girls. 


from 


from 


from 


alto- 




Families. 


Kiiiderg'n 


, Refuges. 


gether. 


4482 


4879 


6323 


5427 


5085 


4565 


5691 


6968 


6074 


5853 


4608 


5503 


8258 


7229 


6028 


4585 


4612 


5484 


5012 


4750 


1044 


1339 


1355 


1229 


1318 


1341 


1770 


2065 


1963 


1828 


2661 


2776 


2451 


2194 


2641 


1034 


1703 


1742 


1501 


1667 


706 


927 


1032 


762 


907 


1443 


1564 


2645 


1570 


1640 


1525 


1655 


2581 


1570 


1702 


2405 


2539 


3419 


2610 


2855 


2221 


2867 


3355 


1963 


2484 



The Contents of Children's Minds 



Boys. 

28. Frog 5551 

29. Fish, .... 6852 

30. Butterfly, . . 7128 

31. Snail, .... 4877 

32. Birch, . . . 1531 

33. Scotch fir, . . 2205 

34. Oak 2625 

35. Willow, . . . 2157 

36. Hazel shrub, . 1055 

37. Whortleberry, . 1792 

38. Sedge (reed), . 1840 

39. Mushroom, . . 3204 

40. Moss 2688 

41. Pleasure Gar- 

den, . . 4021 3654 3800 5032 3672 3861 

42. Uuter den Lin- 

den, . . . 6122 4993 5436 6129 5982 5590 

43. Wil helm's 

Platz, . . . 2696 1464 2345 1935 1524 2158 

44. Alexander 

Platz, . . . 4084 4729 4515 3935 3946 4366 

45. Geusdaruien- 

markt, . . . 3450 2221 2915 3032 2841 2909 

46. Brandenburg 

Gate, . . . 3885 

47. Castle, . . . 3465 

48. King's Palace, . 3180 

49. Museum, . . 3450 

50. Arsenal, . . . 2165 

51. City Hall, . . 3703 

52. Frederick's 

Grove, . . . 3600 

53. Menagerie, . . 5964 

54. Zoological G., . 4346 

55. Bptanical G., . 452 

56. Kreuzberg, . . 4179 

57. Hasenheide, . 5780 

58. Park, .... 1301 

59. Treptow, . .3196 

60. Stralau, . . . 2840 

61. Rummelsberg, . 1459 

62. Drove of sheep, 4005 

63. Corn-field, . . 4322 

64. Potato-field, . 6265 

65. Village, . . . 3672 



2968 


3388 


4774 


3303 


3467 


3367 


3333 


4192 


3510 


3423 


2508 


2788 


3613 


3002 


2886 


2927 


2982 


3935 


3880 


3222 


1689 


1855 


2839 


2032 


1957 


3501 


3412 


5935 


3557 


3615 


4258 


3915 


2710 


4203 


3887 


4893 


5261 


6516 


6028 


5496 


3685 


3727 


6323 


4503 


4057 


624 


497 


1161 


416 


527 


2518 


3479 


4065 


3141 


3454 


4258 


5121 


6194 


4734 


5121 


922 


964 


1355 


1709 


1135 


2897 


3127 


4065 


2469 


3065 


1955 


2515 


2387 


2240 


2453 


963 


1248 


903 


133C 


1242 


3695 


3739 


4323 


4203 


3870 


3726 


4012 


4194 


4203 


4062 


6397 


6303 


6323 


6397 


6323 


2989 


33G4 


3419 


3395 


3374 



On Entering School, 







Boys. 


Girls. 


Children 
from 


Children 
from 


Children 
from 


Children 
alto- 










Families. 


Kinderg'n, 


, Refuges. 


gether. 


66. 


Plough, . . . 


3283 


1801 


2570 


3290 


2656 


2636 


67. 


Harvests, . . 


2744 


1883 


2315 


2323 


2587 


2368 


08. 


Dwelling, . . 


9120 


8905 


9103 


9355 


8612 


9026 


69. 


Name of father, 


8136 


9007 


8830 


8065 


7483 


8517 


70. 


Position " 


8652 


9324 


9194 


8968 


7991 


8945 


71. 


Mountain, . . 


3402 


3050 


3067 


4645 


3441 


3248 


72. 


Forest, . . . 


4036 


3142 


3555 


4194 


3418 


3646 


73. 


Meadow, . . 


5004 


4096 


4467 


4645 


5127 


4607 


74. 


Lake, . . . 


2451 


1586 


2055 


2000 


2171 


2078 


75. 


River, . . . 


1126 


1115 


1194 


968 


901 


1122 



Comparison of Concepts of Boys and Girls. — This table 
shows that out of 10,000 boys 7478 on entering the 
Berlin schools have an idea of the number two; out of 
10,000 girls 7380 have it; out of 10,000 children of both 
sexes, indiscriminately, 7436 have it, etc. Here the con- 
cepts are arranged in systematic order. Mathematics, 
1-8; astronomical, 9-13 ; meteorological, 13-21; ani- 
mals, 22-31; plants, 32-40; local geography, 41-61; 
and miscellaneous. Of three fourths of these concepts 
as objects more girls are ignorant than boys, and those 
who had not been in the kindergarten were more igno- 
rant than those who had. Some of these objects were 
doubtless known, but had not acquired a name for the 
child; others they had seen, but had not had their at- 
tention called to. It is often said that girls are more 
likely to excel boys in learning concepts the more 
general these concepts are. Perhaps we may also as- 
sume that the most common concepts are acquired be- 
fore those possessed by a few individuals only. The 
greater the number of concepts in the test-lists the 
more boys seemed to excel girls. The easy and widely 
diffused concepts are commonest among girls; the harder 
and more special or exceptional ones are commonest 
among boys. The girls clearly excelled only in the fol- 
lowing concepts: name and calling of the father, 



io The Contents of Children's Minds 

thunder-shower, rainbow, hail, potato - field, moon, 
square, circle, Alexander Square, Frederick's Woods, 
morning-red, oak, dew, and Botanical Garden. Of all 
the children the sphere was known to 7C per cent, the 
cube to 69 per cent, the square to 54 per cent, the 
circle to 49 per cent, the triangle to 41 per cent. The 
girls excel in space concepts and boys in numbers. 
Girls excel in ideas of family, house, and thunder- 
storms; children from houses of refuge had more con- 
cepts than children from families, and those from kin- 
dergartens excelled both. The child's characteristic 
question, "What is that?" is so poorly answered at 
home that he comes to school so poor in concepts that 
instruction must either operate with words, or use 
pictures, or go back to nature. Thus text-books and 
other means of instruction assume a knowledge which 
the child does not possess, and it is hard to find those 
well adapted to a given population. Thus object-les- 
sons, excursions, etc., are suggested as first steps to fill 
the gaps in the child's knowledge. 

Comparison between Knowledge of Bible and of Fairy 
Stories.— The following table shows the relative number 
of children who knew four Bible stories and four of 
Grimm's favorite fairy tales. 





Boys. Girls. 


From 
Families. 


Kinder- 
garten. 


Refuges, 


, All. 


Per Cent. 
Boys. Girls. 


God, , . . 


. 7827 5067 


6927 


5935 


5704 


6633 


60.7 39.3 


Christ,'. . . 


. 6757 4217 


5818 


5355 


5104 


5648 


61.6 38.4 


Bible stories, 


. 3743 1453 


2727 


2258 


2979 


2744 


72 28 


Prayers aud 














Songs. . . 


. 5400 4647 


5078 


5613 


4850 


5041 


53.7 46.6 


Schneewittchen, 


2173 3009 


2436 


4387 


2263 


2538 


41.9 58.1 


liothkappchen, 


. 2427 3664 


2800 


4581 


3025 


2967 


39.8 60.2 


Dornroscheu, 


. 563 1044 


661 


1871 


808 


773 


35 65 


Aschenbrodel, 


. 1784 2897 


2182 


3871 


2032 


2270 


38 61.9 


Average. 














Religious, . . 


. 5852 3846 


5138 


4790 


4659 


5021 


60.3 39.7 


Fairy tales, . 


. 1734 2654 


2020 


3677 


2032 


2137 


39.5 60.5 



On Entering School, 1 1 

Thus girls excel in fairy tales and boys in religious 
concepts. As the opportunities to learn both would not 
probably differ much, there seems here a difference of 
disposition. God and Christ were better learned at 
home and the tales best in the kindergarten. Koth- 
kiippchen was better known than God, and Schneewitt- 
chen than Christ. 

Other Comparisons. — More boys could repeat sentences 
said to them, or sing musical phrases sung to them, or 
sing a song, than girls. Kindergarten children came 
from the richer, refuge children from the poorer class, 
while parents between these extremes occupy themselves 
most with their children. The better off the parents 
the stiller and less imitative the child, is a law suggested 
by the statistics of abilities. Not only method, but 
choice and arrangement of the material of instruction, 
depend on the knowledge the child has. Further in- 
vestigations on narrower and more closely related sub- 
jects should be chosen. Six to twelve closely related 
points is suggested as the best method, and every teacher 
could occasionally complete such inventories in his oi- 
lier room. 

How the Locality of a School in Germany Affects the 
Instruction. — In Germany it is more common than in 
our country to connect songs, poetry, reading and object- 
lessons, instruction in history, geography, botany, geol- 
ogy, and other elementary branches with the immediate 
locality. A school geography of Leipzig, e.g., begins 
with the schoolhouse and yard, the street, with cross- 
sections of it to show drainage, gas, etc., and then widens 
out into the world by concentric circles. Stated holiday 
walks conducted by teachers for educational purposes 
and for making collections for the school-rooms are 
more common. The psychic peculiarities of different 



1 2 The Contents of Children's Minds . 

school districts of Berlin seemed to be influenced sur- 
prisingly by locality. 

Lange's Conclusions from Similar Experiments. — In 
1879 Dr. K. Lange urged that a six-years child has 
learned already far more than a student learns in his 
entire university course. " These six years have been 
full of advancement like the six days of creation." 
Concrete conceptions have been accumulated in vast 
numbers and the teacher must not assume that a tabula 
rasa is before him. Both this and the presumption of 
too much knowledge would be to build upon sand. 
Children have experienced and learned far more than 
they can put into words; hence again the need of cross- 
questioning.* Lange's table below was based on 500 
children entering the city schools of Plauen, and 300 
entering 21 country schools in outlying districts, and 
the figures represent the per cents of those having the 
concept. 

Questions or Concept. Children. Children. 

1. Seen the sun rise, 18 42 

2. Seen the sun set, 23 58 

3. Seen the moon aud stars, 84 82 

4. Seen and heard lark 20 70 

5. Fish swimming wild, 72 83 

6. Been to a pond, 51 86 

7. Been to a brook or river, 71 82 

8. Been on high hill or mountain, ... 48 74 

9. Been in a forest, 63 86 

n>. Knows an oak, 18 57 

11. Seen a corn or wheat field 64 92 

12. Knows how bread comes from grain, . 28 63 

13. Seen a shoemaker at work, 79 80 

14. Seen a carpenter at work, 55 62 

15. Seen a mason at work, 86 92 

16. Been in a church, 50 49 

17. Knows aught of the dear God, .... 51 66 

* See Der Vorstellungskreis unserer sechsjahrigen Kleiuen. 
Allg. Schul-Zeitung. Jena, 1879, p. 327 et seq. 



On Entering School, 13 

Only 43 per cent of the city children had ever been 
to any other town or village, only 18 per cent had seen 
the castle near by, and knowledge of colors was as fol- 
lows, beginning with those best known and ending with 
the least known: black, white, red, green, blue, yellow. 
The ignorance of city children shows the utility of 
school excursions. Girls had seen, heard, and experienced 
less than boys of all the seventeen subjects of inquiry 
save the " dear God," of whom they knew more than 
the boys. Little is told of Lange's methods, or whether 
or how far they led to a modification of the elementary 
curriculum. 

Conditions of the Experiment in Boston.— It was with 
the advantages of many suggestions and not a few 
warnings from these attempts that the writer under- 
took, soon after the opening of the Boston schools in 
September, 1880, to make out a list of questions suitable 
for obtaining an inventory of the contents of the minds 
of children of average intelligence on entering the 
primary schools of that city. This was made possible 
by the liberality of Mrs. Quincy Shaw, who detailed 
four excellent teachers from her comprehensive system 
of kindergartens to act as special questioners under the 
writer's direction, and by the co-operation of Miss L. B. 
Pingree, their superintendent. All the local and many 
other of the German questions were not suitable to 
children here; and the task of selecting those that 
should be so, though perhaps not involving quite so 
many perplexing considerations as choosing an equally 
long list of "normal words," was by no means easy. 
They must not be too familiar nor too hard and remote, 
but must give free and easy play to thought and memory. 
But especially, to yield most practical results, they 



14 The Contents of Children's Minds 

should lie within the range of what children are com- 
monly supposed or at least desired or expected, by 
teachers and by those who write primary text-books and 
prescribe courses of instruction, to know. Many prelim- 
inary half-days of questioning small groups of children 
and receiving suggestions from many sources, and the 
use of many primers, object-lesson courses, etc., now in 
use in this country, were necessary before the first pro- 
visional list of one hundred and thirty-four questions 
was printed. The problem first had in mind was strictly 
practical; viz., what may Boston children be, by their 
teachers, assumed to know and have seen when they 
enter school; although other purposes more psycho- 
logical shaped other questions used later. 

What the Sources of Errors are in such Tests. — The 
difficulties and sources of possible error in the use of 
such questions are many. Not only are children prone 
to imitate others in their answers without stopping to 
think and give an independent answer of their own, but 
they often love to seem wise, and, to make themselves 
interesting, state what seems to interest us without 
reference to truth, divining the lines of our interest 
with a subtlety we do not suspect : if absurdities are 
doubted by the questioner, they are sometimes only the 
more protested by the children; the faculties of some 
are 'benumbed and perhaps their tongues tied by bash- 
fulness, while others are careless, listless, inattentive, 
and answer at random. Again, many questioners are 
brusque, lacking in sympathy or tact, or real interest or 
patience in the work, or perhaps regard it as trivial or 
fruitless. These and many other difficulties seemed 
best minimized by the following method, which was 
finally settled upon, and, with the co-operation of Mr. E. 



On Entering School. 15 

P. Seaver, superintendent of the Boston schools, put 
into operation. 

Means taken to Obtain the Exact Facts concerning 
Children's Ideas. — The four trained and experienced 
kindergarten teachers were employed by the hour to 
question three children at a time in the dressing-room 
of the school by themselves alone, so as not to interrupt 
the school-work. No constraint was used, and, as sev- 
eral hours were necessary to finish each set, changes and 
rests were often needful, while by frequent correspond- 
ence and by meetings with the writer to discuss details 
and compare results uniformity of method was sought. 
The most honest and unembarrassed child's first answer 
to a direct question, e.g., whether it has seen a cow, 
sheep, etc., must rarely or never be taken without care- 
ful cross-questioning — a stated method of which was 
developed respecting many objects. If the child says it 
has seen a cow, but when asked its size points to its own 
finger-nail or hand and says, so dig, as not unfrequently 
occurs, the inference is that it has at most only seen a 
picture of a cow, and thinks its size reproduced therein, 
and accordingly he is set down as deficient on that 
question. If, however, he is correct in size, but calls 
the color blue, does not know it as the source of milk, 
or that it has horns or hoofs, — several errors of the 
latter order were allowed. A worm may be said to 
sivim on the ground, butchers to kill only the bad ani- 
mals, etc.; but when hams are said to grow on trees or 
in the ground, or a hill is described as a lump of dirt 
or wool as growing on hens, as sometimes occurs, de- 
ficiency is obvious. Thus many other visual and other 
notions that seem to adults so simple that they must be 



1 6 The Contents of Children's Minds 

present to the mind with some completeness or not at 
all, are in a process of gradual acquisition, element by 
element, in the mind of a child, so that there must 
sometimes be confessedly a certain degree of arbitrari- 
ness in saying, as, except in cases of peculiar uncertainty, 
the questioners attempted to do, that the child has the 
concept or does not have it. Men's first names seemed 
to have designated single striking qualities; but, once 
applied, they become general or specific names ac- 
cording to circumstances. Again, very few children 
knew that a tree has bark, leaves, trunk, and roots; 
but very few indeed had not noticed a tree enough 
for our "pass." Without specifying further details, 
it may suffice here to say that the child was given 
the benefit of every doubt and credited with knowl- 
edge wherever its ignorance was not so radical as to 
make a chaos of what instruction and most primary 
text-books are wont to assume. It is important also 
to add that the questioners were requested to report 
manifest gaps in the child's knowledge in its own words, 
reproducing its syntax, pronunciation, etc. 

200 Average Children the Basis of the Following 
Tables. — About sixty teachers besides the four examiners 
made returns from three or more children each. Many 
of their returns, however, are incomplete, careless, or 
show * internal contradictions, and can be used only 
indirectly to control results from the other sources. 
From more than twice that number two hundred of the 
Boston children were selected as the basis of the follow- 
ing table. For certain questions and for many statisti- 
cal purposes this number is much too small to yield very 
valuable results; but where, as in the majority of cases, 



On Entering School. 1 7 

the averages of these children taken by fifties have 
varied less than ten per cent, it is safe to infer that the 
figures have considerable representative worth and far 
more than they could have if the percentage was small. 
The precautions that were taken to avoid schools where 
the children come from homes representing extremes of 
either culture or ignorance, or to balance deviations 
from a preliminary conjecture averaged in one direction 
by like deviations in the other, and also to select from 
each school-room with the teacher's aid only children of 
average capacity and to dismiss each child found un- 
responsive or not acquainted with the English language, 
give to the percentages, it is believed, a worth which 
without these and other precautions to this end only far 
larger numbers could yield. 

Percentage of Ignorance Given. — The following table 
shows the general results for a number of those questions 
which admit of categorical answers, only negative results 
being recorded; the italicized questions in the "mis- 
cellaneous" class being based on only from forty to 
seventy-five children, the rest on two hundred, or, in a 
few cases, on two hundred and fifty. 

Tests Made upon 678 Children in Kansas City. — In 
1883, shortly after my own tables, as below, were pub- 
lished, Superintendent I. M. Greenwood, of Kansas City, 
tested 678 children of the lowest primary class in that 
city, of whom 47 were colored, with some of my ques- 
tions. I here print his percentages in the last two 
columns. In his State children are admitted to school 
at six; but his tests were made in March, April, May, or 
after some seven months more of school life, and prob- 
ably at greater age. 



1 8 The Contents of Children' s Minds 

Comparison of Boston and Kansas City Results. 

Name of the Object Per Cent of Children 

of Conception. Ignorant of it. 

In Boston. In Kansas City. 

White. Colored. 

Beehive, 80 59.4 66 

Crow, 77 47.3 59 

Bluebird, 72.5 

Ant, 65.5 21.5 19.1 

Squirrel, 63 15 4.2 

Snail, 62 

Robin, 60.5 30.6 10.6 

Sparrow, 57.5 

Sheep, 54 3.5 

Bee, ...... . .... 52 7.27 4.2 

Frog, 50 2.7 

Pig, 47.5 1.7 

Chicken, 83.5 .5 

Worm 22 .5 

Butterfly, 20.5 .5 

Hen 19 .1 

Cow, 18.5 5.2 

Growing wheat 92.5 23.4 66 

Elm-tree, 91.5 52.4 89.8 

Poplar- tree, 89 

Willow, 89 

Growing oats, 87.5 

Oak-tree 87 62.2 58.6 

Pine, 87 65.6 87.2 

Maple 83 31.2 80.8 

Growing moss, 81.5 30.7 42.5 

'• strawberries 78.5 26.5 1.1 

" clover, 74 

" beans, 71.5 

" blueberries 67.5 

blackberries, 66 

" corn, 65.5 

Chestuut-tree, 64 

Planted a seed, 63 

Peaches on a tree, 61 

Growing potatoes, 61 

*' buttercup, 55.5 

" rose, 54 

" grapes 53 

" dandelion 52 



On Entering School. 



*9 



Name of the Object 
of Conception. 



Per Cent of Children 

Ignorant of it. 

In Boston. In Kansas City. 

White. Colored. 



Growing cherries, 46 



pears 



32 



Knows rii 



apples, 21 

Where are the child's ribs, . . .90.5 
" lungs, ... 81 
" heart, ... 80 
" wrist, . . .70.5 

ankles, 65.5 

waist, 52.5 

hips, 45 

knuckles, .... 36 

elbows, 25 

;ht and left hand, . . .21.5 

cheek, 18.5 

" forehead, 15 

" throat, 13.5 

44 knee 7 

" stomach, 6 

Dew, 78 

What season it is, 75 5 

Seen hail 73 

44 rainbow, 65 

44 sunrise, 56.5 

" sunset 53.5 

44 clouds, 35 

4< stars, 14 

" moon, 7 



13.6 

26 

18.5 
3 

14.1 

14 

14 
2.9 
1.5 
1 
.5 
.5 
1.1 
1.6 

27.2 

39.1 
31.8 
13.6 
10.3 
16.6 
19.5 

7.3 

3 
26 



6.4 
44.6 
18.1 



4.2 
4.2 
8.5 

10.2 



45.9 

70.2 

56.1 

18.1 

2.1 



53 



Conception of an island, 
44 a beach, 



87.5 



55. 



" woods, . . . .53.5 

44 river, 48 

pond, .... 40 

hill 28 

44 brook, .... 15 

44 triangle, .... 92 

44 square, .... 56 

circle, .... 35 

The number five, 28.5 

four, 17 

44 " three, 8 



20 The Contents of Children's Minds 

Name of the Object Per Cent of Children 

of Conception. Ignorant of it. 

In Boston. In Kansas City. 

White. Colored. 

Seen watchmaker at work, . . . 68 30.1 49.7 

" file, 65 20.8 36.1 

" plough, 64.5 13.9 8.5 

" spade, 62 7.3 15 

" hoe, 61 5 10.6 

" bricklayer at work, . . . .44.5 10.1 2.1 

" shoemaker at work, .... 25 8.7 

" axe, 12 18.4 53 

Knows green by name 15 

" blue by name, 14 

" yellow by name, . . . .13.5 
" red by name, ..... 9 

That leathern things come from 

animals, 93.4 50.8 72.3 

Maxim or proverb, 91 . 5 

Origin of cotton things, . . . . 90 35.7 15 

What flour is made of, 89 34.7 57.4 

Ability to knit 88 

What bricks are made of 81.1 33.1 53 

Shape of the world 70.3 46 47 

Origin of woollen things, .... 61) 55 44 
Never attended kindergarten, . .67.5 

Never been in bathing, 64.5 13.4 

Can tell no rudiment of a story, . .58 23.6 12.7 
Not know wooden things are from 

trees, 55 19.3 6.4 

Origin of butter 50.5 6.7 

Origin of meat (from animals), . . 48 8.3 12.7 

Canuotsew 47.5 23.4 

Cannot strike a given musical tone, 40 

Cannot beat time regularly, ... 39 

Have never saved cents at home, .36 8.2 12.7 

Never been in the country, . . . 35.5 13.1 19 

Can repeat no verse, 28 20 42.5 

Source of milk, 20.5 4 



On Entering School. 



21 



Classification with Reference to Sex and Nationality. 



Per Cent 

Name of the Object t,™^™,^ 
of Concept. Ignorance 

150 Girls. 

Beehive, 81 

Ant, 59 

Squirrel, 69 

Snail, 69 

Robin, 69 

Sheep, 67 

Bee, 46 

Frog, 53 

Pig, 45 

Chicken, 35 

Worm, 21 

Butterfly, 14 

Hen 15 

Cow, 18 



Per Cent 

of 
Ignorance 

in 
160 Boys. 

75 
60 
50 
73 
44 
47 
32 
38 
27 
21 
17 
16 
14 
12 



Per Cent 

of 

Ignorance 

in 

50 Irish 

Children. 

86 
74 
66 
92 
64 
62 
52 
54 
38 
32 
26 
26 
18 
20 



Per Cent Per Cent 

of of 
Ignorance Ignorance 
in 50 in 04 kin- 
American derprarten 
Children. Children. 



70 

38 
42 
72 
36 
40 
32 
35 
26 
16 
16 
8 



61 
26 
43 
62 
29 
40 
26 
35 
22 
22 
9 
9 
14 
10 



Growing clover, 
" corn, 



potatoes, , 
buttercup, 
rose, . , 
dandelion, 
apples, 



59 
58 
55 
50 
48 
44 
16 



50 
54 
51 
48 
42 
16 



84 
60 
62 
66 
60 
62 
18 



42 
68 
44 
40 
42 
34 
12 



29 
32 
34 
31 
33 
31 
5 



Ribs 88 92 98 82 68 

Ankles, 58 52 62 40 38 

Waist, 53 52 64 32 36 

Hips, 50 47 72 31 24 

Knuckles, 27 27 34 12 23 

Elbow, 19 32 36 16 12 

Right from left hand, .20 8 14 20 4 

Wrist, 21 34 44 9 19 

Cheek, 10 12 14 14 4 

Forehead, 10 11 12 10 7 

Throat, 10 18 14 16 14 

Knee, 4 5 2 10 2 

Dew, 64 63 92 52 57 

What season it is, . . 59 50 68 48 41 

Hail, 75 61 84 52 53 

Rainbow, 59 61 70 38 38 



22 The Contents of Children's Minds 

Percent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent 

of of of of of 

Name of the Object Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance 

of Concept. in in in in 50 in 61 kln- 

150 Girls. 150 Boys. 50 Irish American dergai ten 

Children. Children. Children. 

Sunrise, 71 53 70 36 53 

Sunset, 47 49 52 32 29 

Star, 15 10 12 4 7 

Island, 74 78 84 64 55 

Beach 82 49 60 34 32 

Woods 46 36 46 32 27 

River, 38 44 62 12 13 

Pond, 31 34 42 24 28 

Hill, 23 22 30 12 19 

The number five, . . 26 16 22 24 12 

four, . . 15 10 16 14 7 

three, .7 6 12 8 

Y/hat Children were Examined in Boston. — The first 
Boston table is based upon about equal numbers of boya 
and girls, and children of Irish and American parentage 
greatly predominate. There are 21 Germans, and 19 are 
divided between 8 other nationalities; 14 per cent of all 
examined did not know their age; 6 per cent were four, 
37 per cent were five, 25 per cent were six, 12 per cent 
were seven, and 2 per cent were eight years old. The 
returns were carefully tabulated to determine the influ- 
ence of age, which seems surprisingly unpronounced, 
indicating, so far as the small numbers go, a slight value 
of age per se as an index of ripeness for school. 

the Returns Indicate Little Difference between the 
Sexes. — In the second table which is based on Boston 
children, only columns 2 and 3 are based upon larger 
numbers, and upon less carefully restricted selections 
from the aggregate returns. In 34 representative ques- 
tions out of 49 the boys surpass the girls, as the German 
boys did in 75 per cent of the Berlin questions. The 
girls excel in knowledge of the parts of the body, home 



On Entering School, 23 

and family life, thunder, rainbows, in knowledge of 
square, circle, and triangle, but not in that of cube, 
sphere, and pyramid, which is harder and later. Their 
stories are more imaginative, while their knowledge of 
things outward and remote, their power to sing and ar- 
ticulate correctly from dictation, their acquaintance with 
number and animals, is distinctly less than that of the 
boys. The Berlin report infers that the more common, 
near, or easy a notion is the more likely are the girls to 
excel the boys, and vice versa. Save possibly in the 
knowledge of the parts of the body, our returns do not in- 
dicate difference between the sexes. Boys do seem, how- 
ever, more likely than girls to be ignorant of common 
things right about them; where knowledge is wont to 
be assumed. Column 5 shows that the Irish children 
tested were behind others on nearly all topics. The 
Irish girls decidely outrank the Irish boys, the advan- 
tage to the sex being outweighed by the wider knowl- 
edge of the boys of other nationalities. Whether, how- 
ever, the five and six-year old Irish boys are not after all 
so constituted as to surpass their precocious American 
playmates later in school or adult life, as since Sigis- 
mund many think " slow " children generally do, is one 
of the most serious questions for the philosophical edu- 
cator. 

The Advantage of the Kindergarten Shown. — Column 
G shows in a striking way the advantage of the kinder- 
garten children, without regard to nationality, over all 
others. Most of the latter tested were from the charity 
kindergartens, so that superior intelligence of home sur- 
roundings can hardly be assumed. Many of them had 
attended kindergarten but a short time, and the ques- 
tions were so ordered that the questioners who had a 



24 The Contents of Children's Minds 

special interest in the kindergarten should not know till 
near the end of their tests whether or not they had ever 
attended it. On the other hand, a somewhat larger pro- 
portion of the children from the kindergarten had been 
in the country. Yet on the whole we seem to have here 
an illustration of the law that we really see not what is 
near or impresses the retina, but what the attention is 
called and held to, and what interests are awakened and 
words found for. Of nearly thirty primary teachers 
questioned as to the difference between children from 
kindergartens and others, four saw no difference, and all 
the rest thought them better fitted for school-work, in- 
stancing superior use of language, skill with the hand 
and slate, quickness, power of observation, singing, num- 
ber, love of work, neatness, politeness, freedom from the 
benumbing school-bashfulness, or power to draw from 
dictation. Many thought them at first more restless and 
talkative. 

Important Educational Conclusions may be Derived. — 
There are many other details and more or less probable 
inferences, but the above are the chief. The work was 
laborious, involving about fifty thousand items in all. 
These results are, it is believed, to be in some degree 
the first opening of a field which should be specialized, 
and in which single concept-groups should be subjected 
to more detailed study with larger numbers of children. 
One difficulty is to get essential points to test for. If 
these are not characteristic and typical, all such work is 
worthless. We believe that not only practical educa- 
tional conclusions of great scope and importance may be 
based on or illustrated by such results, but, though many 
sources of inaccuracy may limit their value, that they 
are of great importance for anthropology and psychology. 



On Entering School. 25 

It is characteristic of an educated man, says Aristotle in 
substance, not to require a degree of scientific exactness 
on any subject greater than that which the subject ad- 
mits. As scientific methods advance, not only are in- 
creasingly complex matters subjected to them, but prob- 
abilities (which guide nearly all our acts) more and more 
remote from mathematical certainty are valued. 

Knowledge of Children's Ideas Essential as Basis of 
Right Instruction. — Steinthal tells an opposite story of 
six German gentlemen riding socially in a coupe all day, 
and as they approached the station where they were to 
separate, one proposed to tell the vocation of each of the 
others, who were strangers to him, if they would write 
without hesitation an answer to the question, " What 
destroys its own offspring ? " One wrote, Vital force. 
" You," said the questioner, " are a biologist." Another 
wrote, War. " You," he said, " are a soldier." Another 
wrote, Kronos, and was correctly pronounced a philolo- 
gist; while the publicist revealed himself by writing, 
Revolution, and the farmer by writing, She-bear. This 
fable teaches the law of apperception. As Don Quixote 
saw an army in a flock of sheep and a giant in a wind- 
mill, as some see all things in the light of politics, others 
in that of religion, education, etc., so the Aryan races 
apperceived the clouds as cows and the rain as their 
milk, the sun as a horse, the lightning as an arrow; and 
so the children apperceive rain as God pouring down 
water; thunder as barrels, boards falling, or cannon; 
heaven as a well-appointed nursery, etc. They bring 
more or less developed apperceiving organs with them 
into school, each older and more familiar concept gain- 
ing more apperceptive power over the newer concepts 
and percepts by use. The older impressions are on the 



26 The Contents of Children's Minds 

lurch, as it were, for the new ones, and mental freedom 
and all-sideness depend on the number and strength of 
these appropriating concepts. If there are very few, as 
with children, teaching is like pouring water from a big 
tub into a small narrow-necked bottle. A teacher who 
acts upon the now everywhere admitted fallacy that 
knowledge of the subject is all that is needed in teach- 
ing children pours at random onto more than into the 
children, talking to rather than with them, and gauging 
what he gives rather than what they receive. All now 
agree that the mind can learn only what is related to 
other things learned before, and that we must start from 
the knowledge that the children really have and develop 
this as germs, otherwise we are showing objects that re- 
quire close scrutiny only to indirect vision, or talking to 
the blind about color, i Alas for the teacher who does 
not learn more from his children than he can ever hope 
to teach them ! Just in proportion as teachers do this 
do they cease to be merely mechanical, and acquire in- 
terest, perhaps enthusiasm, and surely an all-compensat- 
ing sense of growth, in their work and life. 

Four Inferences from above Tables. — From the above 
tables it seems not too much also to infer — I. That there 
is next to nothing of pedagogic value the knowledge of 
which it is safe to assume at the outset of school-life. 
Hence the need of objects and the danger of books and 
word-cram. Hence many of the best primary teachers 
in Germany spend from two to four or even six months 
in talking of objects and drawing them before any be- 
ginning of what we till lately have regarded as primary- 
school work. II. The best preparation parents can give 
their children for good school-training is to make them 
acquainted with natural objects, especially with the 



On Entering School. 27 

sights and sounds of the country, and to send them to 
good and hygienic, as distinct from the most fashionable, 
kindergartens. III. Every teacher on starting with a 
new class or in a new locality, to make sure that his 
efforts along some lines are not utterly lost, should un- 
dertake to explore carefully section by section children's 
minds with all the tact and ingenuity he can command 
and acquire, to determine exactly what is already shown ; 
and every normal-school pupil should undertake work 
of the same kind as an essential part of his training. 
IV. The concepts that are most common in the chil- 
dren of a given locality are the earliest to be acquired, 
while the rarer ones are later. This order may in teach- 
ing generally be assumed as a natural one, e.g., apples 
first and wheat last (cf. the first Boston table above). 
This order, however, varies very greatly with every 
change of environment, so that the results of explora- 
tions of children's minds in one place cannot be as- 
sumed to be valid for those of another save within com- 
paratively few concept-spheres. 

The Common Notion of what Children Know Erro- 
neous. — The high rate of ignorance indicated in the 
table may surprise most persons who will be likely to 
read this report, because the childhood they know will 
be much above the average of intelligence here sought, 
and because the few memories of childhood which sur- 
vive in adult life necessarily bear but slight traces of 
imperfections, and are from many causes illusory. 
Skeins and spools of thread were said to grow on the 
sheep's back or on bushes, stockings on trees, butter to 
come from buttercups, flour to be made of beans, oats 
to grow on oaks, bread to be swelled yeast, trees to be 
stuck in the ground by God and to be rootless, meat to 



28 The Contents of Children's Minds 

be dug from the ground, and potatoes to be picked 
from the trees. Cheese is squeezed butter, the cow 
says " bow-wow," the pig purrs or burrows, worms are 
not distinguished from snakes, moss from the "toad's 
umbrella/' bricks from stones, etc. An oak may be 
known only as an acorn-tree or a button-tree, a pine only 
as a needle-tree, a bird's nest only as its bed, etc. So 
that while no one child has all these misconceptions, 
none are free from them, and thus the liabilities are 
great that, in this chaos of half-assimilated impressions, 
half -right, half-wrong, some lost link may make utter 
nonsense or mere verbal cram of the most careful in- 
struction, as in the cases of children referred to above 
who knew much by rote about a cow, its milk, horns, 
leather, meat, etc., but yet were sure from the picture- 
book that it was no bigger than a small mouse. 

City Life is Unnatural. — For 8G per cent of the 
above questions the average intelligence of thirty-six 
country children who were tested ranks higher than 
that of the city children of the table, and in many items 
very greatly. The subject-matter of primers for the 
latter is in great part still traditionally of country life ; 
hence the danger of unwarranted presupposition is con- 
siderable. As our methods of teaching grow natural we 
realize that city life is unnatural, and that those who 
grow,up without knowing the country are defrauded of 
that without which childhood can never be complete or 
normal. On the whole, the material of the city is no 
doubt inferior in pedagogic value to country experience. 
A few days in the country at this age has raised the 
level of many a city child's intelligence more than a 
term or two of school-training could do without it. It 



On Entering School. 29 

is there, too, that t >f a love of natural 

science are best lai' 

Country Life ar lave aC - 1 

Value. — "We cannot ^ 
fications the evolutionary diciu.. 
development should repeat that of the 
primitive man, the child has a feeble body, anu it 
influenced by a higher culture about him. Yet from 
the primeval intimacy with the qualities and habits of 
plants, with the instincts of animals — so like those of 
children — with which hawking and trapping, the riding 
on instead of some distance behind horses, etc., made 
men familiar ; from primitive industries and tools as 
first freshly suggested, if we believe Geiger, from the 
normal activities of the human organism, especially of 
the tool of tools, the hand ; from primitive shelter, 
cooking and clothing, with which anthropological re- 
searches make us familiar, it is certain that not a few 
educational elements of great value can be selected and 
systematized for children — an increasing number of them 
in fact being already in use for juvenile games and 
recreations and for the vacation pastimes of adults. A 
country-barn, a forest with its gloom and awe, its vague 
fears and indefinite sounds, is a great school at this age. 
The making of butter, of which some teachers, after . 
hearing so often that it grew inside eggs, or on ice, or 
was made from buttermilk, think it worth while to 
make a thimbleful in a toy churn at school as an object- 
lesson ; more acquaintance with birds, which, as having 
the most perfect senses, most constant motion in several 
elements, even Leopardi could panegyrize as the only 
real things of joy in the universe, and which the strange 
power of flight makes ideal beings with children, and 



30 The Contents of Children's Minds 

whose nests were sometimes said to groiv on trees ; 
more knowledge of kitchen-chemistry, of foods, their 
preparation and origin ; wide prospects for the eyes — 
these elements constitute a more pedagogic industrial 
training for young children, because more free and play- 
like, than sewing, or cooking, or whittling, or special 
trade-schools can, and are besides more hygienic. 

What Advantages the City Child Has, and what He 
Lacks. — Many children locate all that is good and im- 
perfectly known in the country, and nearly a dozen 
volunteered the statement that good people when they 
die go to the country — even from Boston. It is things 
that live, and, as it were, detach themselves from their 
background by moving that catch the eye and with it 
the attention, and the subjects which occupy and in- 
terest the city child are mainly in motion and there- 
fore transient, while the country child comes to know 
objects at rest better. The country child has more 
solitude, is likely to develop more independence, and is 
less likely to be prematurely caught up into the absorb- 
ing activities and throbbing passions of manhood, and 
becomes more familiar with the experiences of primi- 
tive man. The city child knows a little of many more 
things, and so is more liable to superficiality, and has a 
wider field of error. At the same time it has two great 
advantages over the country child, in knowing more of 
human nature and in entering school with a much 
better developed sense of rhythm, and all its important 
implications. On the whole, however, additional force 
seems thus given to the argument for excursions, by 
rail or otherwise, regularly provided for the poorer chil- 
dren who are causing the race to degenerate in the 



On Entering School. 31 

great centres of population, unfavorable enough for 
those with good homes or even for adults. 

Words often Produce Distorted Ideas through Re- 
semblance in Sound. — Words, in connection with rhyme, 
rhythm, alliteration, cadence, etc., or even without 
these, simply as sound-pictures, often absorb the atten- 
tion of children, and yield them a really aesthetic 
pleasure either quite independently of their meaning 
or to the utter bewilderment of it. They hear fancied 
words in noises and sounds of nature and animals, and 
are persistent punners. As butterflies make butter or 
eat it or give it by squeezing, so grasshoppers give 
grass, bees give beads and beans, kittens grow on the 
pussy-willow, and all honey is from honeysuckles, and 
even a poplin dress is made of poplar-trees. When the 
cow lows it somehow blows its own horn ; crows and 
scarecrows are confounded ; ant has some subtle rela- 
tionship to aunt ; angle-worm suggests angle, or tri- 
angle, or ankle ; Martie eats " tomarties ; " a holiday is 
a day to " holler " on ; Harry O'Neil is nicknamed 
Harry ' Oatmeal ; isosceles is somehow related to sau- 
sages; October suggests knocked over ; " I never saw a 
hawk, but I can hawk and spit too ; " "I will not siug 
do re mi, but do re you ; " " Miss Eaton will eat us " — 
these and many more from the questioners' notes ; the 
story of the child who, puzzled by the unfamiliar re- 
flexive use of the verb, came to associate " Now I lay 
me," etc., with a lama ; of the child who wondered 
what kind of a bear was the consecrated cross-eyed bear 
as he understood the hymn " The consecrated cross I'd 
bear ; " or of another who was for years stultified as 
against a dead blank wall whenever the phrase " answer 
sought " occurred, suggest to us how, more or less con- 



32 The Contents of Children s Minds 

sciously and more or less seriously, a child may be led, 
in the absence of corrective experience, to the most 
fantastic and otherwise unaccountable distortions of 
facts by shadowy word-spectres or husks. 

Danger that Knowledge May be Verbal Rather than 
Real. — In many of the expressions quoted the child 
seems playing with relations once seriously held, and 
its " fun " to be joy over but lately broken mental 
fetters. Some at least of the not infrequently quite un- 
intelligible statements or answers may perhaps be thus 
accounted for. Again, the child more than the adult 
thinks in pictures, gestures, and inarticulate sounds. 
The distinction between real and verbal knowledge has 
been carefully and constantly kept in mind by the ques- 
tioners. Yet of the objects in the above table, except 
a very few, like triangle and sparrow, a child may be 
said to know almost nothing, at least for school pur- 
poses, if he has no generally recognized name for them. 
The far greater danger is the converse, that only the 
name and not the thing itself will be known. To test 
for this danger was, with the exceptions presently to be 
noted, our constant aim, as it is that of true education 
to obviate it. The danger, however, is after all quite 
limited here; for the linguistic imperfections of children 
are far more often shown in combining words than in 
naming the concrete things they know or do not know. 
To name an object is a passion with them, for it is to 
put their own mark upon it, to appropriate it. From 
the talk which most children hear and use to book lan- 
guage is again an immense step. Words live only in 
the ear and mouth, and are pale and corpse-like when 
addressed to the eye. What we want, and indeed are 
likely soon to have, are carefully arranged child vocabu- 



On Entering School. 33 

laries and dictionaries of both verbal forms and mean- 
ings, to show teachers just the phonic elements and 
vocal combinations children have most trouble with, — 
the words they most readily and surely acquire, their 
number and order in each thought-sphere, — and the 
attributes and connotations most liable to confuse them. 
To that work it is believed the method here employed 
has already furnished valuable material in protocol, 
soon to be augmented and digested. 

The Color Test Designed to Determine Power of 
Using Color-names. — To specify a few items more fully, 
the four color-questions were designed to test, not color- 
blindness, but the power to use color-names. The 
Holmgren worsteds were used, from which the child 
was asked to pick out, not colors like others to which 
its attention is directed without naming them, but the 
color named, to which he has no clue but the name. It 
did not seem safe to complicate the objects of the latter 
educational test with the former, so that some of those 
marked defective in the table may or may not have been 
color-blind. Excluding colored and Jewish children, 
both of whom seem to show exceptional percentages, 
and averaging the sexes, both Magnus and Jeffries 
found a little over two per cent of many thousand 
children color-blind. The children they tested, how- 
ever, were much older than these; and two or three 
hundred is far too small a number to warrant us, were 
it otherwise allowable, in simply subtracting two per 
cent and inferring that the remainder were deficient 
only in knowledge of the color-word. Our figures, 
then, do not bear upon the question whether the color- 
sense itself is fully developed before the age of five or 
six or not. 



34 The Contents of Children's Minds 

Also in Number Tests, the Number-name was Sought. 
— Again, number cannot be developed to any practical 
extent without knowledge of the number-name. More- 
over, as Wundt's careful experiments show, the eye can 
apprehend but three of the smallest and simplest objects, 
unless they are arranged in some geometrical order, 
without taking additional time to count. As the chro- 
matic scale grades musical intervals, or the names wc 
count by graduate the vague sense of more or less, and 
later, as visible notes change all musical ideas and possi- 
bilities, so figures or number-signs almost create arith- 
metic. A child who seriously says a cat has three or five 
legs will pick out its own, e.g., the fourth seat in the fifth 
row in an empty school-room almost every time by happy 
guessing, and hold up "so many" fingers or blocks, when, 
if the number-name five or six were called for and noth- 
ing shown, it would be quite confused. In our tests the 
number-name was sought, because it is that which is 
mainly serviceable for educational purposes. 

Physical Self-consciousness and Knowledge of the Earth 
Small. — As to the physiological and geographical ques- 
tions little need be said. Joint, flesh, and vein are often 
unknown terms, or joint is where the bone is broken, and 
there are stones in the knees. Within the skin is blood 
and something hard, perhaps wood. Physical self- con- 
sciousness, which is in little danger of becoming morbid 
at' this age, begins with recognition of the hand, then of 
the foot, because these are the most mobile parts, but has 
not often reached the face at this age, and blushing is 
rare; while psychic self-consciousness is commonly only 
of pain, either internal, as of stomach-ache, or peripheral, 
of cuts, bruises, etc. The world is square, straight, or 
flat, and if the other side has been thought of it is all 



On Entering School. 35 

woods or water or ice, or where saved people or Protes- 
tants, or anything much heard of but little seen, are; if 
we go to the edge of the world we come to water or may 
fall off, or it may be like a house and we live on top. The 
first notion of a hill may be of some particular pile of 
sand, perhaps on the moulding-board, three inches high, 
or a rubbish-heap in the back-yard, or a slant where a sled 
will run alone ; but a comprehensive idea of hill with 
opposite sides, though simpler and easier than most geo- 
graphical categories, is by no means to be assumed. 

There is a Region of Fancy in Children's Minds Hard 
to be Reached. — If children are pressed to answer ques- 
tions somewhat beyond their ken, they often reply con- 
fusedly and at random, while if others beside them are 
questioned they can answer well ; some are bolder and 
invent things on the spot if they seem to interest the 
questioner, while others catch quick subtle suggestions 
from the form of the question, accent, gesture, feature, 
etc., so that what seems originality is really mind-reading, 
giving back our very thought, and is sometimes only a 
direct reproduction, with but little distortion, because 
little apprehension, of what parents or teachers have 
lately told them. But there are certain elements which 
every tactful and experienced friend of children learns to 
distinguish from each of these with considerable accuracy 
—elements which, from whatever source, spring from deep 
roots in the childish heart, as distinct form all these as 
are Grimm's tales from those of some of our weakly juve- 
nile weeklies. These are generally not easily accessible. I 
could not persuade an old nurse to repeat to me a nonsen- 
sical song I half-overheard that delighted a two-year-old 
child, and the brothers Grimm experienced a similar dif- 
ficulty in making their collections. As many workingmen 



$6 The Contents of Children's Minds 

nail a horseshoe over their door for luck, and many people 
really prefer to begin nothing important on Friday, who 
will not confess to a trace of superstition in either case, 
so children cling to their "old credulities to nature dear," 
refusing every attempt to gain their full confidence or 
explore secret tracts in their minds, as a well-developed 
system of insane illusions may escape the scrutiny of the 
most skilful alienist. As a reasoning electric light might 
honestly doubt the existence of such things as shadows, 
because, however near or numerous, they are always hid- 
den from it, so the most intelligent adults quite com- 
monly fail to recognize sides of their own children's souls 
which can be seen only by strategy. A boy and girl often 
play under my window as I write, and when either is quite 
alone unconscious words often reveal what is passing in 
their own minds, and it is often very absurd or else mean- 
ingless, but they run away with shame and even blushes 
if they chance to look up suddenly and catch me listen- 
ing. Yet who of us has not secret regions of soul to 
which no friend is ever admitted, and which we ourselves 
shrink from full consciousness of? Many children half- 
believe the doll feels cold or blows, that it pains flowers 
to tear or burn them, or that in summer when the tree is 
alive it makes it ache to pound or chop it. Of 48 chil- 
dren questioned 20 believed sun, moon, or stars to live, 15 
thought a doll, and 16 thought flowers would suffer pain 
if burned. Children who are accounted dull in school- 
work are more apt to be imaginative and animistic. 

Children's Fancies — The Sky. — The chief field for such 
fond and often secret childish fancies is the sky. About 
three fourths of all questioned thought the world a plain, 
and many described it as round like a dollar, while the 
sky is like a flattened bowl turned over it. The sky is 



On Entering School. 



37 



often thin, one might easily break through; half the 
moon may be seen through it, while the other half is tins 
side; it may be made of snow, but is so large that there 
is much floor-sweeping to be done in heaven. 

The Sun.— Some thought the sun went down at night 
into the ground or just behind certain houses, and went 
across, on or under the ground to go up, out of, or off the 
waterm the morning; but 48 per cent of all thought that 
at night it goes or rolls or flies, is Mown or walks, or God 
pulls it up higher out of sight. He takes it into heaven, 
and perhaps puts it to bed, and even takes off its clothes 
and puts them on in the morning, or again it lies under 
the trees, where the angels mind it, or goes through and 
shines on the upper side of the sky, or goes into or behind 
the moon, as the moon is behind it in the day. It may 
stay where it is, only we cannot see it; for it is dark, or 
the dark rams down so, and it comes out when it nets 
light so it can see. More than half the children ques- 
tioned conceived the sun as never more than 40 decrees 
from the zenith, and, naturally enough, city children 
knew little of the horizon. 

The Moon.-So the moon (still italicizing where the' 
exact words of the children are given) conies around when 
it is a bright night and people want to walk, or forget to 
hght some lamps; it follows us about and has nose and 
eyes while it calls the stars into, under, or behind it at 
night, and they may be made of bits of it. Sometimes 
the moon is round a month or hoo; then it is a rim, or a 
piece is cutoff, or it is half stuck or half-buttoned into 
wie sky. The stars may be sparks from fire-engines or 
houses or with higher intelligence, they are silver, or God 
tights them with matches and blows them out or opens the 
door and calls them in in the morning. Only in a single 



38 The Contents of Children s Minds 

case were any of the heavenly bodies conceived as open- 
ings in the sky to let light or glory through, or as eyes of 
supernatural beings — a fancy so often ascribed to chil- 
dren and so often found in juvenile literature. 

Thunder and Lightning. — Thunder, which, anthro- 
pologists tell us, is or represents the highest God to most 
savage races, was apperceived as God groaning or kick- 
ing, or rolling barrels about, or turning a big handle, 
or grinding snow, walking loud, breaking something, 
throwing logs, having coal run in, pounding about with 
a big hammer, rattling houses, hitting the clouds, or 
clouds bumping or clapping together or bursting, or else 
it was merely ice sliding off lots of houses, or cannon in 
the city or sky, hard rain down the chimney, or big rocks 
pounding, or piles of boards falling down, or very hard 
rain, hail or wind. Lightning is God pulling out His 
finger or opening a door, or turning a gas quick, or (very 
common) striking many matches at once, throwing stones 
and iron for sparks, setting paper afire, or it is light 
going outside and inside the sky, or stars falling. 

Clouds and Rain. — God keeps rain in heaven in a big 
sink, rotes of buckets, a big tub or barrels, and they run 
over or he lets it down with a water-hose, through a sieve, 
a dipper with holes, or sprinkles or tips it down or turns 
a faucet. God makes it in heaven out of nothing or out 
of water, or gets it up by splashing up, or he dips it up 
off the roof, or it rains up off the ground lehen we don't 
see it. The clouds are close to the sky; they move be- 
cause the earth moves and makes them. They are dirty, 
muddy things, or blankets, or doors of heaven, and are 
made of fog, of steam that makes the sun go, of smoke, of 
white wool or feathers and birds, or lace or cloth. In 
their changing forms very many children, whose very life 



On Entering School. 39 

is fancy, think they see veritable men, or more commonly, 
because they have so many more forms, animals' faces, 
and very often God, Santa Clans, angels, etc., are also 
seen. Closely connected with the above are the religious 
concepts so common with children. 

God and Heaven. — God is a big, perhaps blue man, very 
often seen in the sky, on or in the clouds, in the church, 
or even street. He came in our gate, comes to see us 
sometimes. He lives in a big palace, or a big brick or 
stone house on the sky. He makes lamps, babies, dogs, 
trees, money, etc., and the angels ivorkfor Mm. He looks 
like the priest, Frobel, papa, etc., and they like to look at 
him, and a few would like to be God. He lights the stars 
so he can see to go on the sideivalk or into the church. 
Birds, children, Santa Claus, live with him, and most but 
not all like him better than they do the latter. When 
people die they just go, or are put in a hole, or a box or 
a black wagon that goes to heaven, or they fly up or are 
drawn or slung up into the sky where God catches them. 
They never can get out of the hole, and yet all good people 
somehow get where God is. He lifts them up, they go 
up on a ladder or rope, or they carry them up, but keep 
their eyes shut so they do not know the way, or they are 
shoved up through a hole. When children get there they 
have candy, rocking-horses, guns, and everything in the 
toy-shop or picture-book, play marbles, top, ball, cards, 
hookey, hear brass bands, have nice clothes, gold watches, 
and pets, ice-cream and soda-water, and no school. There 
are men who died in the war made into angels, and dolls 
with broken heads go there. Some think they must go 
through the church to get there; a few thought the horse- 
cars run there, and one said that the birds that grow on 
apple-trees are drawn up there by the moon. The bad 



40 The Contents of Children' s Minds 

place is like an oven or a police-station, where it burns 
yet is all dark, and folks want to get back, and God hills 
people or teats them with a cane. God makes babies in 
heaven, though the holy mother and even Santa Claus 
make some. He lets them doivn or drops them, and the 
women or doctors catch them, or he leaves them on the 
sidewalk, or brings them down a ivooden ladder back- 
ivards and pulls it up again, or mamma or the doctor or 
the nurse go up and fetch them sometimes in a balloon, 
or they fly down and lose off their wings in some place 
or other and forget it, or jump doion to Jesus, who gives 
them around. They were also often said to be found in 
flour-barrels, and the flour sticlcs ever so long you know, 
or they grow in cabbages, or God puts them in water, 
perhaps in the sewer, and the doctor gets them out and 
takes them to sick folks that ivant them, or the milkman 
brings them early in the morning, they are dug out of 
the ground, or bought at the baby-store. Sometimes God 
puts on afeio things or else sends them along if he don't 
forget it; this shows that no one since Basedow believes 
in telling children the truth in all things. 

Such Fancies Dim, Timid, and Changing. — Not many 
children have or can be made to disclose many such 
ideas as the above, and indeed they seem to be generally 
already on the ebb of this age, and are sometimes tim- 
idly introduced by, as if, some say, it is like, or / used 
to think. Clear and confident notions on the above 
topics are the exception and not the rule, yet most have 
some of them, while some are common to many, indeed 
to most, children. They represent a drift of consentient 
infantile philosophy about the universe not without 
systematic coherence, although intimidated and broken 
through at every point by fragmentary truths, often 



On Entering School. 41 

only verbal indeed, without insight or realization of a 
higher order, so that the most diametrical contradictions 
often subsist peacefully side by side, and yet they are 
ever forming again at lower levels of age and intelligence. 
In all that is remote the real and ideal fade into each 
other like clouds and mountains in the horizon, or as 
poetry, which keeps alive the standpoints of an earlier 
culture, coexists with science. Children are often hardly 
conscious of them at all, and the very questions that 
bring them to mind and invite them to words at the 
same time often abash the child to the first disquieting 
self-consciousness of the absurdity of his fond fancies 
that have felt not only life but character in natural 
objects. Between the products of childish spontaneity, 
where the unmistakable child's mark is seen, and those 
of really liappij suggestion by parents, etc., the distinc- 
tion is as hard as anywhere along the line between 
heredity and tradition. It is enough that these fancies 
are like Galton's composite portraits, resultants in form 
and shading of the manifold deepest impressions which 
what is within and what is without have together made 
upon the child's soul in these spheres of ideas. 

They Represent Ever-changing Grades of Culture. — 
Those indicated above represent many strata of intelli- 
gence up through which the mind is passing very rapidly 
and with quite radical transformations. Each stratum 
was once, with but a little elaboration, or is now some- 
where, the highest culture, relegated to and arrested in 
an earlier stage as civilization and educational methods 
advance. Belief in the false is as necessary as it is 
inevitable in children for the proper balance of head 
and heart, and happy the child who has believed or 
loved only healthy, unaffected, platonic lies like the 



42 The Contents of Children s Minds 

above, which will be shed with its milk-teeth when more 
solid mental pabulum can be digested. It is possible 
that the present shall be so attractive and preoccupying 
that the child never once sends his thoughts to the 
remote in time and place, and these baby-fancies — 
ever ready to form at a touch, which make the im- 
partation of truth, however carefully put, on these 
themes impossible before its time; which, when long 
forgotten, yet often reverberate, if their old chords be 
struck in adults, to the intensity of fanaticism or even 
delusion — shall be quite repressed. If so, one of the 
best elements of education which comes from long ex- 
perience in laying aside a lower for a higher phase of 
culture by doubting opportunely, judiciously, and tem- 
perately, is lost. 

Childish Thought Largely in Terms of Sight. — De 
Quincey's pseudopia is thought by Dr. E. H. Clarke 
(Visions, p. 212) to be common with children; but 
although about 40 were asked to describe what they 
saw with their eyes shut, it is impossible to judge 
whether they visualize in any such distinctive sense as 
Mr. Galton lias described, or only imagine and remember, 
often with Homeric circumstance, but with less pictu- 
resque vividness. Childish thought is very largely in 
visual terms; hence the need of object (Anschauungs) 
lessons, and hence, too, it comes that most of the above 
questions address the eye without any such intent. If 
phonic symbols could be made pictorial, as they were 
originally, and as illustrated primers made them in a 
third and still remoter sense, the irrational elements in 
learning to read would be largely obviated. 

Sensations of Sound Referred to Color. — Again, out of 
53 children 21 described the tones of certain instruments 



On Entering School. 43 

as colored." The colors, or " photisms," thus suggested, 
though so far as tested constant from week to week in 
the same child, had no agreement for different instru- 
ments, a drum, e.g., suggesting yellow (the favorite color 
of children) to one child and black or red to another, 
and the tone of a fife being described as pale or bright, 
light or dark colored, intensity and saturation varying 
greatly with different children. For this and other 
forms of association or analogies of sensations of a large 
and not yet explored class so common in children, many 
data for future study were gathered. This was also the 
case with their powers of time and tone reproduction, 
and their common errors in articulation, which have 
suggested other and more detailed researches, some of 
which are already in progress. 

Ideas of Right and Wrong — The Latter much more 
Distinct. — Each child was asked to name three things 
right and three things wrong to do, and nearly half 
could do so. In no case were the two confused, indicat- 
ing not necessarily intuitive perception, but a general 
consensus in what is allowed and forbidden children 
at home, and how much better and more surely they 
learn to do than to know. Wrong things were speci- 
fied much more readily and by more children than right 
things, and also in much greater variety. In about 450 
answers 53 wrong acts are specified, while in over 350 
answers only M different good acts are named. The 
more frequent answers are to mind and be good, or to dis- 
obey, be naughty, lie, and say bad words; but the answers 



1 In the sense of Blenlcr and Lehmann. See their treatise 
" Zwangmiissige Liehtempfinduug dureh Schall," Leipzig, 1881. 
Also, Lazarus' "Leben der Seele," II., p. 131. 



44 The Contents of Children s Minds 

of the girls differ from the boys in two marked ways; 
they more often name specific acts and nearly twice as 
often conventional ones, the former difference being most 
common in naming right, the latter in naming wrong 
things. Boys say it is wrong to steal, fight, kick, break 
windows, get drank, stick pins into others, or to "sass," 
" cuss," shoot them, while girls are more apt to say it is 
wrong not to comb the hair, to get butter on the dress, 
climb trees, unfold the hands, cry, catch flies, etc. The 
right things seem, it must be confessed, comparatively 
very tame and unattractive, and while the genius of an 
Aristotle could hardly extract categories or infer in- 
tuitions by classifications from either list, it is very 
manifest that the lower strata of conscience are dislike 
of dirt and fear. Pure intuitionalists may like to know 
that over a dozen children were found who convinced 
their questioners that they thought they ought not to 
say bad words if no one heard them, or lie if not found 
out, etc., or who felt sick at the stomach when they had 
been bad, but the soap and water or sand with which 
their mouths are sometimes washed after bad words in 
kindergartens, or the red pepper administered at home 
after lies, may possibly have something to do with the 
latter phenomenon. 

Drawings Illustrating Development of Observation and 
of Sense of Form. — From several hundred drawings, with 
the name given them by the child written by the teacher, 
the chief difference inferred is in concentration. Some 
make faint, hasty lines representing all the furniture of 
a room, or sky and stars, or all the objects they can 
think of, while others concentrate upon a single object. 
It is a girl with buttons, a house with a keyhole or steps, 
a man with a pi$e or heels or ring grotesquely promi- 



On Entering School. . 45 

nent. The development of observation and sense of 
form is best seen in the pictures of men. The earliest 
and simplest representation is a round head, two eyes 
and legs. Later comes mouth, then nose, then hair, 
then ears. Arms like legs first grow directly from the 
head, rarely from the legs, and are seldom fingerless, 
though sometimes it is doubtful whether several arms 
or fingers from head and legs without arms are meant. 
Of 44 human heads only 9 are in profile. This is one of 
the many analogies with the rock and cave drawings of 
primitive man, and suggests how Catlin came to nearly 
lose his life by " leaving out the other half " in drawing 
a profile portrait of an Indian chief. Last, as least 
mobile and thus attracting least attention, comes the 
body; first round like the head, then elongated, some- 
times prodigiously, and sometimes articulated into sev- 
eral compartments, and in three cases divided, the upper 
part of the figure being in one place and the lower in 
another. The mind, and not the eye alone, is addressed, 
for the body is drawn and then the clothes are drawn on 
it (as the child dresses), diaphanous and only in outline. 
Most draw living objects except the kindergarten chil- 
dren, who draw their patterns. More than two thirds 
of all objects are decidedly in action, and under 18 per 
cent are added word-pictures or scribbles called the 
name of the objects and made to imitate writing or 
letters, as children who cannot talk often make gibbering, 
sputtering sounds to imitate talking. The very earliest 
pencillings, commonly of three-year-old children, are 
mere marks to and fro, often nearly in the same line. 
Of 13 of these most were nearly in the angle described 
by Javal as corresponding to the earliest combination of 



46 The Contents of Children's Minds 

finger and fore-arm movements and not far from the 
regulation slant of 52° taught in school penmanship. 

Reproduction of Stories, Showing Considerable Power 
of Abstraction. — Each child was asked to tell a verse or 
story to be recorded verbatim, and nearly half could do 
so. Children of this age are no longer interested in 
mere animal noises or rhymes or nonsense-words of the 
"Mother Goose" order, but everything to interest them 
deeply must have a cat, dog, bird, baby, another child, 
or possibly parent or teacher in it; must be dramatic and 
full of action, appeal to the eye as a " chalk-talk " or an 
object-lesson, and be copious of details, which need be 
varied but slightly to make the story as good as new for 
the twentieth time. A long gradation of abstractions 
culminates here. First, it is a great lesson for the child 
to eliminate touch and recognize objects by the eye 
alone. The first good pictures mentally seen are felt of, 
turned over with much confusion to find the surface 
smooth. To abstract from visual terms to words is still 
harder. Eyes and tongue must work together a long 
time before the former can be eliminated and stories 
told of objects first absent, then remote, then before un- 
known. Children must be far beyond this before they 
can be interested, e. g., in fairly tales, and stories told in- 
terest them far more than if read to them, no matter 
how apt the language. They are reproduced about as 
imperfectly as objects are drawn, only a few salient and 
disconnected points being seized at first, and sentence 
and sequence coming very slowly after many repetitions. 
Their own little faults may be woven in or ascribed to 
animals or even plants in a remote way which they them- 
selves will feel at each stage, and the selfish birdie or the 



On Entering School. 47 

runaway squirrel or flowers as kind words may be re- 
ferred to in case of need as a reserve moral capital. Why 
do we never teach maxims and proverbs which, when 
carefully selected, are found so effective at this age and 
teach the best morality embodied in the briefest and 
most impressive way? 

Ideas of Money. — Of the 36 per cent or 72 children of 
the table who never saved their pennies, 52 spend them 
for candy, which growing children need, but the adulter- 
ations of which are often noxious. Of toys, big things 
please them best. A recent writer in Austria fears that 
school savings-banks tend to call attention too early to 
money matters, and to cause its value to be dangerously 
overrated ; but to pass the candy by and drop the cents 
where they are beyond their control for years is much 
less pedagogic than to save them till a larger and more 
costly toy can be bought. 

Tests to Find Basis of First School Instruction — Devel- 
opment, not Acquisition. — The next experimental in- 
quiry i in the field was also made in quest of a natural basis 
of the first school instruction. If we look at the develop- 
ing effect upon the person of the pupil, progress in the 
upper gymnasial classes is perhaps less than in the first 
year of school, although, if we regard the quantity of 
acquisition or its importance, it is much greater. That 
the matter of instruction is preferred to the develop- 
ment of the person of the pupil is the cause of the mem- 
ory-cram and neglect of pedagogy, which often makes 
school-keeping, as Grimm called it, lower than the work 
of the day laborer. Herbart, Ziller, and Stoy, however, 

1 Die Analyse des Kindlichen Gedankeiikreises, Dr. B. Hart- 
uianu. Auuaberg, 1890, p. 116. 



48 The Contents of Children's Minds 

plead for " educating instruction," and showed will to 
be rooted in the sphere of thought, which should first 
be moral and religious. Many-sided interest is the root 
and key of all. Interest may be of knowledge or of 
perception, and statistical inquiry might seek to deter- 
mine which class of interests predominate, and whether 
reproduction was slow, confused, partial, or the reverse. 
The Berlin tables showed what ideas were lacking, but 
Lange sought the ideas that were not lacking as a basis 
of school knowledge. The child's soul is no tabula rasa, 
and very suggestive are papers on the best methods of 
excursions for city schools, on the educational value and 
use of home and its environment and apperception. 

Tests in Annaberg Schools to Determine Natural Basis 
of Two First Years' Course. — Hartmann's tests were made 
solely, he says, in the interests of the Annaberg schools, 
to determine the natural basis of the course of study 
there for the first year or two of school. The 14 plainer 
questions were not enough, and he had not heard of the 
Boston tests, and so those of Berlin were largely his 
model. His tests were better than all others in one re- 
spect, viz., they were repeated five years, 1880-84, on as 
many groups of children entering school, and they have 
given rise to analogous tests in other cities, best perhaps 
in Dobeln. For Hartmanir's purpose a large number of 
questions were needed, and interests of knowledge must 
be regarded more than those of sympathy or participa- 
tion. To an Herbartian the former seems earlier and 
richer, but the ideal of normalizing a sphere of thought 
is evident. Concepts likely to be wanting in children 
of that town were excluded in favor of those easily ac- 
cessible to every child, yet those chosen were not model 



On Entering School, 49 

or normal in the sense that often others as good might 
not have been chosen. The flying, singing lark may be 
seen every day in spring at Annaberg, and if it has not 
been noticed, the child may be inert and indifferent, or 
its senses dull or defective, and this would also be the 
inference had the swallow been chosen. By this method 
each locality will find objects especially prominent and 
peculiar to it. A book by E. Piltz, entitled " School- 
children's Observation of Nature," and Sigismund's 
"The Family as a School of Nature," contain good 
lists of topics (the former 700 of them) and reports from 
similar tests. As a manufacturing centre of passemen- 
terie, and a shire town and retail centre, Annaberg has 
rich and poor, and its prosperity depends on changes in 
fashions, so that the 265 children entering its schools 
yearly differ greatly. Some children were very bashful 
on first entering school, used to only the local dialect, 
which most teachers did not speak, but by beginning 
with the easiest questions and talking of parents and 
toys, these difficulties were minimized. Thus answers 
were often enigmatical, and much cross and indirect 
questioning was required before the dash which signi- 
fied knowledge on the point, or the plus sign which 
signified its absence, could be made. In all 1312 chil- 
dren, 660 boys and 652 girls, were tested, all between 6f 
and 5| years old, the tests being made before and after 
regular school-hours, by the teacher, who worked with 
small groups and made them answer individually when 
possible. 

The table below reads as follows : out of 660 boys en- 
tering schools in Annaberg, 1881-4, 126, or 19 per cent, 
had seen a wild hare, etc. 



50 The Contents of Children's Minds 

Percentage of Knowledge of 100 Familiar Objects 
Arranged in Groups. 

xr^ r.,,™™ 660 652 1312 Percentages. 

No. Object. Boys Girls in all Boys GMa gum 

1. Hare, 126 81 207 19 12 1G 

2. Squirrel, 99 69 168 15 10 13 

3. Flock of sheep, . . 235 198 433 36 30 33 

4. Starling, 85 68 153 13 10 12 

5. Goose, 272 250 522 41 38 40 

6. Hen 195 178 373 30 27 28 

7. Cuckoo, 69 88 157 10 13 12 

8. Lark, 76 83 159 12 13 12 

9. Frog, 188 126 314 29 19 24 

10. Fish,, 141 122 263 21 19 20 

11. Bee 75 46 121 11 7 9 

12. Butterfly, .... 287 302 649 44 55 49 

13. Snail 210 201 411 32 31 31 

14. Birch, 33 10 43 5 2 3 

15. Pine, 145 148 293 22 23 22 

16. Acorn 17 11 28 ' 3 2 2 

17. Cherry-tree, .... 83 138 221 13 21 17 

18. Apple-tree, .... 208 219 427 31 34 33 

19. Hazel-nut 78 42 120 12 6 9 

20. Flowers, 322 317 639 49 49 49 

21. Whortleberry, . . .158 193 351 24 29 27 

22. Moss, 130 107 237 20 16 18 

23. Mushroom, .... 113 165 278 17 25 21 

24. Sandpit, 58 37 95 9 6 7 

25. Quarry, 121 105 226 18 16 17 

26. Mine, 41 33 74 6 5 6 

27. Tempest, 363 424 787 55 65 59 

28. Fog, 186 246 432 28 38 33 

29. Clouds, 266 293 559 40 45 42 

30. Hailstones, .... 307 315 622 46 48 47 

31. Rainbow 226 264 490 34 40 37 

32. 'Evening sky, ... 119 166 285 18 25 22 

33. Sunset, 82 77 159 12 12 12 

34. Phases of moon, . .148 223 371 22 34 28 

35. Starry sky 349 466 815 53 71 62 

86. Clock (time), ... 27 18 45 4 3 3 

37. Days of week, . . . 54 92 146 8 14 11 

38. Seasons, 37 64 101 6 10 8 

39. Constellations, ... 4 1 5 1 1 

40. Dwelling, .... 543 503 1046 82 77 80 

41. ZurckerSq., . . .346 328 674 52 50 51 

42. Chief market, ... 471 452 923 71 69 70 



On Entering School. 



Si 



No. Object. 

43. Buchholzer St., 

44. Real Gymnasium, 

45. Berg church, . 

46. Catholic church, 

47. Town Hall, . . 

48. Post-office, . . 

49. R. R. station, . 
50 Bahls Restaurant, 
51. Nursery- tree, . 
53. Markus-Rohling 

old mine), 

53. Promenade, . . 

54. Grove, . . . 

55. Church-yard, . 

56. Pohlberg, . . 

57. Galgenberg, . . 

58. Schreckeuberg, 

59. Buchheltz, . . 

60. Frohuau, . . 

61. Wiesenbad, . . 
63. Geyersdorf, . . 

63. Valley, . . . 

64. River 

65. Bridge, . . . 

66. Water-mills, . 

67. Pond, .... 

68. Meadow, . . . 

69. Corn-field, . . 

70. Potato-field, . . 

71. Snow landscape, 
73. Village, . . . 

73. Soldiers' monument 

74. Fountain, . . 

75. Caniage driving, 

76. Road, .... 

77. Field-works, . 

78. Garden-works, . 

79. Acute-angled Irian 

80. Square, . . . 

81. Cube, .... 
83. Circle, . . . 

83. Sphere or globe, 

84. Counting from 1 to 

85. God, . . . 
8o. Jesus, . . . 



(an 



H), 



660 


652 


1312 


Percentaors. 


Boys. 


GUIs. 


in all. 


Boys. 


Girls. 


Sum. 


. 378 


381 


559 


43 


43 


43 


. 133 


164 


397 


20 


35 


23 


. 310 


330 


430 


33 


34 


33 


. 331 


337 


468 


35 


36 


36 


. 430 


403 


833 


65 


63 


63 


. 397 


344 


641 


45 


53 


49 


. 418 


433 


851 


63 


66 


65 


. 167 


189 


356 


25 


29 


27 


. 163 


180 


343 


25 


27 


26 


i 
. 193 


267 


460 


29 


41 


35 


. 338 


293 


530 


35 


45 


40 


. 173 


253 


435 


26 


39 


33 


. 394 


469 


863 


60 


72 


66 


. 317 


244 


461 


33 


37 


35 


89 


89 


178 


13 


13 


13 


117 


112 


339 


18 


17 


17 


383 


329 


611 


43 


50 


47 


164 


336 


390 


25 


35 


30 


131 


159 


380 


18 


34 


31 


139 


300 


339 


21 


31 


26 


51 


59 


110 


8 


9 


8 


150 


157 


307 


23 


24 


23 


383 


358 


540 


43 


39 


41 


153 


151 


303 


23 


23 


23 


434 


490 


934 


66 


75 


70 


350 


318 


468 


38 


33 


36 


183 


111 


394 


28 


17 


22 


345 


358 


703 


52 


55 


54 


389 


363 


551 


44 


40 


42 


158 


175 


333 


24 


27 


25 




136 


316 


27 


21 


24 


397 


394 


791 


60 


60 


60 


3:53 


363 


694 


50 


55 


53 


300 


346 


646 


45 


53 


49 


350 


181 


431 


38 


28 


33 


313 


311 


434 


32 


32 


33 


63 


66 


138 


9 


10 


10 


101 


90 


191 


15 


14 


15 


314 


393 


507 


32 


45 


39 


380 


384 


564 


43 


43 


43 


546 


510 


1056 


83 


78 


80 


456 


405 


861 


69 


63 


66 


370 


401 


771 


56 


61 


59 


68 


143 


310 


10 


22 


16 



52 The Contents of Children's Minds 

Kn Onwr 660 652 1312 PERCENTAGES. 

JNO. OBJECT. BoySi Girlg hl alL Boys# Girlg gula 

87. Bible history, ... 7 14 21 1 2 2 

88. Prayers and Son^s, .122 184 306 28 28 23 

89. Divine service, . . . 192 223 415 19 34 32 

90. Baptism, 118 228 346 18 35 26 

91. Wedding, .... 70 227 297 11 35 23 

92. Father's name and sta- 

tion, 425 370 795 64 57 61 

93. King 52 42 94 8 6 7 

94. Coins, 450 398 848 68 61 65 

96. Sickness 356 406 762 54 62 58 

96. Fairytales, .... 32 39 71 5 6 5 

97. Repetition in speakiug, 480 426 906 73 65 69 

98. Recitation 68 62 130 10 9 10 

99. Repetition in singing, 226 243 469 34 37 36 

100. To sing songs, . . 102 161 263 15 25 20 

By Inspection of Results, the Mental Ability of Each 
Child can be Predicted. — The objects, it will be observed, 
are here arranged in groups as follows: Animals 1-13, 
plants 14-23, mineral 24-26, events in nature 27-35, 
time 36-39, localities 40-51, the home landscape 52-78, 
mathematical 79-84, religious 85-91, social 94-94, mis- 
cellaneous 95-100. Of the children tested the first year 
the individual record of a few was followed and given 
with detail. A boy who passed on 75 out of the 100 
showed an excellent record each year. He had a large 
vocabulary, yet would repeat a story with fidelity to the 
words it was told in that was almost servile. He Avas 
better in sharp thought than in fantasy. A girl was 
deficient in all groups and almost zero in some, having 
only 41 per cent of the questions, and a boy had but 12 
of the 100 usable concepts. The school marks and the 
carefully kept individuality-books in these and other 
cases corresponded very nearly to the efficiency shown 
in the preliminary tests. Not only do the latter 
harmonize with following school-years, but Hartmann 
thinks that from a careful inspection of the results of 



On Entering School. 53 

each group into which the 100 questions fall the mental 
ability if not the future career of the child can be pre- 
dicted. What shall be said, he adds, of the waste of the 
general public school in which all three of these children 
are taught side by side in the same class ? 

Proofs of the Value of these Tests to Determine In- 
dividuality. — In this inventory great stress was laid 
upon the natural setting of each object. The ques- 
tioners were told that it was not sufficient to have seen, 
but they must have ridden on the cars, the apple-tree 
must have had apples on it, the butterfly must have 
been on the flower, the sheep grazing, the frog spring- 
ing, etc. One of these concepts was known to but five, 
and one to 1056 of the 1312 children, and the others 
were between these extremes. In animals, minerals, 
and the social group only did boys excel. Girls excelled 
in 56 and boys in 38 objects. Girls excelled the boys in 
their marks also in the first, second, and third school- 
year, but less and less, till in the sixth year the boys 
were distinctly ahead. Again, on entering the usual 
elementary school, each boy had on the average 30.7 of 
the 100 concepts, and each girl 36.7. At the end of the 
first school-year the boys had an average mark of prog- 
ress of 3.03, and each girl 2.53. Thus we can form the 
proportion, 36.7 : 30.7 = 30.3 : x, which gives, as the 
value of its fourth term, 2.535, which varies only 0.005 
from the actual mark of the girls. For each of the next 
three years the deviation is hardly greater. The product 
of the number of concepts multiplied by the chief school- 
mark in Germany which designates progress comes out 
about the same in girls' as in boys' classes. Out of the 
100 usable concepts the average girl had 32.9, the aver- 
age boy 30.8. The average Annaberg number, 31.9, is 



54 The Contents of Children's Minds 

thus small. So valuable were these tests for determin- 
ing the individuality of the child, for the program and 
for the teachers that at Easter either the entire hundred, 
or at least the best 30 questions, are tested each year. 
These are the following: hare, hen, frog, butterfly, fir- 
tree, flower, thunderstorm, rainbow, moon-phases, days 
of the week, child's home, city-hall, railway station, 
potato-field, snow landscape, cube, numbers, work in 
the field, baptism, coins, sickness, God, Jesus, and local- 
ities. In the practice school of the Pedagogical Semi- 
nary at Jena, each school-year begins with this analysis 
of the children's sphere of thought. 

The Use of Stories to Develop Apperception. — The 
complete course of study for the first and second school- 
year based upon his inquest the author reserves for a 
later pamphlet, and gives here only an outline of his 
ideas. Nothing fulfils all the conditions of Herbartian 
interest at first better than Bible stories; but only 25 
per cent of the children have usable Bible concepts, and 
their apperceptive organs are hardly developed enough 
to make this fruitful. Genuine child stories, according 
to Willmann, must have five marks, viz., they must be 
really child-like or simple and full of fancy, they must 
excite and educate the mental judgment, must be in- 
structive and of permanent worth, they must make a 
deep unitary impression which shall be a centre of 
future interest. It must thus be popular and classical. 
Hartmann thanks God that this demand can be met by 
the Grimm Mdrclien. Since Ziller's first plea for Miir- 
chen in school nearly a quarter of a century ago, the 
battle about them has raged. Hartmann disagrees with 
Ziller and Rein in thinking that four of these are enough 
for the first school-year, and feed all the Herbartiaii in- 



On Entering School. 55 

terests. The Star Dollars, which teaches that although, 
all desert the child there is One that does not, comes 
last. Eein is charged with selecting his twelve tales 
arbitrarily, without the justification which only such a 
preliminary inquest can give, or else for external 
reasons, as basis for instruction in natural history, etc. 
Hartmann's limited use of Mcirchen should not only 
educate religious and other sentiments, but it should 
teach to apprehend and to tell again. 

Bible Stories Best. — After this practice for half a year 
Bible stories should come. The New Testament should 
precede the Old, and all should centre about the Jesus 
child. To fail of insuring close intimacy with Bible 
tales in early childhood is, we are told, one of the 
gravest of all pedagogical errors. The topic of this 
half-year should be the nativity, the visit of the three 
wise men, Jesus in the temple, the wedding at Cana, the 
boy at Nain, the entrance to Jerusalem, the arrest of 
Jesus, his condemnation, death, and burial. This plan 
has been followed in close connection with the church- 
year in Annaberg, and with the best results. Even for 
narrative and educational values this has excelled all 
other material. This matter must be so treated as to 
evoke the greatest interest and participation, and never 
at the same part of the year as the Marclien. Keligious 
instruction should thus be the chief and central. It 
should select the matter and all it requires without 
reference to other branches, and in this sense only they 
should all be subordinate to it. The last sixteen pages 
are given to an outline or program for each of the 40 
full school-weeks of the German school-year. This is 
divided as narrative matter and object-lesson matter. 
The first begins with a brief prayer and song, the first 



56 The Contents of Children's Minds 

Marchen in the third week, and new and longer songs, 
prayers and tales, then proverbs and poems with Bible 
tales the last half-year. The second begins with name, 
place in school, time, school-days, movements, with use 
of slate, sponge and pencil in the second week, each 
child's home, street, parents' name, home-life, fence, 
hedge, flowers, animals and birds seen on the way, 
garden tools, planting and sowing, riddles, drawing, 
then writing and reckoning, etc. Every object in the 
table is gone over with detail and many more. They 
draw dog-houses, bird-cages, mouse-trap, spider's web, 
hat, lamp, stove, moon, star, cat, dish, sled, church, 
altar, Christmas-tree, knife and fork, wine-bottle and 
glass, bed, tea-cup and pot, hat, cap, gravestone, street- 
lamp, city-hall, book-case, slate, etc. 



The Best Educational Periodicals. 



The School Journal 

is published weekly at $2.50 a year and is in its 23rd year. 
It is the oldest, best known and widest circulated educational 
weekly in the U. S. The Journal is filled with ideas that will 
surely advance the teachers' conception of education. The best 
brain work on the work of professional teaching is found in it 
— not theoretical essays, nor pieces scissored out of other 
journals — The School Journal has its own special writers — - 
the ablest in the world. 

The Primary School Journal 

is published monthly from September to June at $1.00 a year. 
It is the ideal paper for primary teachers, being devoted almost 
exclusively to original primary methods and devices. Several 
entirely new features this year of great value. 

The Teachers' Institute 

is published monthly, at $1.00 a year. It is edited in the same 
spirit and from the same standpoint as The Journal, and has 
ever since it was started in 1878 been the most popular educa- 
tional monthly published, circulating in every state. Every line 
is to the point. It is finely printed and crowded with illustra- 
tions made specially for it. Every study taught by the teacher 
is covered in each issue. 

EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS. 

This is not a paper, but a series of small monthly volumes 
that bear on Professional Teaching. It is useful for those who 
want to study the foundations of education ; for Normal Schools, 
Training Classes, Teachers' Institutes and individual teachers. 
If you desire to teach professionally you will want it. Hand- 
some paper covers, 64pp. each month. The History, Science, 
Methods, and Civics of education are discussed each month, 
and it also contains all of the N. Y. State Examination Ques- 
tions and Answers. 

OUR TIMES 

gives a resume of the important news of the month— not the 
murders, the scandals, etc., but the news that bears upon the 
progress of the world and specially written for the school room. 
It is the brightest and best edited paper of current events pub- 
lished, and so cheap that it can be afforded by every pupil. 
Club rates, 25 cents. 

*** Select the paper suited to your needs and send for a free sample. 
Samples of all the papers 25 cents. 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO. , New York and Chicago. 



8est Books for Teachers, 

CLASSIFIED LIST UNDER SUBJECTS. 

To aid teachers to procure the books best suited to their purpose, we 
fc i ve below a list of our publications classified UDder subjects. The division 
is sometimes a difficult one to make, so that we Have in many cases placed 
the same book under several titles; for instance, Currie's Early Education 
appears under Principles and Practice of Education, and also 
Primary Education. Recent books are starred, thus * 

HISTORY OF EDUCATION, GREAT EDU- _, . , our By 

n» T A-D« -pmA Retail. Price to Mail 

CAXOits, Jilt,. Teachers Extra 

♦Allen's Historic Outlines of Education, - - paper .15 pd. 

Autobiography of Proebel, - cl. .50 .40 ,05 

'Browning's Aspects of Education Best edition. cloth .#> .20 .03 

44 Educational Theories. Best edition. cl. .50 .40 .05 

•Kell ljrg's Life of Pestalozzi, - paper .15 pd. 

♦Lang's Comenius, ______ paper .15 pd. 

* 44 Basedow, _--_--_ paper .15 pd. 

* 41 Rousseau and his 44 Emile" - paper .15 pd. 

* " Horace Mann, ------ paper .15 pd. 

* " Great Teachers of Four Centuries, - cl. .25 .20 .03 
♦Phelps' Lite of David P. Page, - paper .15 pd. 
Quick's Educational Reformers, Best edition. - cl. 1.00 .80 .08 
♦Ueinhart's History of Education, - cl. .35 .*0 .03 

PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 

Allen's Mind Studies for Young Teachers, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Allen's Temperament in Education, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Perez's First Three Years of Childhood. Best edition, cl. 1.50 1.20 .10 

Hooper's Apperception, Best edition. - - cl. .25 .20 .03 

Welch's Teachers' Psychology, - cl. 1.25 1.00 .10 

44 Talks on Psychology, - - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 
PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Carter's Artificial Stupidity in School, - - paper .15 pd. 

Huntington's Unconscious Tuition, - - - paper .15 pd. 

Payne's Lectures on Science and Art of Education, cl. 1.00 .80 .08 

♦Ueinhart's Principles of Education, - - - cl. .25 .20 .03 

♦Spencer's Education. Best edition. - - - cl. 1.00 .80 .10 

♦Hall (G. S.) Contents of Children's Minds, - cl. .25 .20 3 

Tat e's Philosophy of Education. Best edition. - cl. 1.50 1.20 ,10 

♦Teachers' Manual Series. 22 nos. ready, each, paper .15 pd. 

PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 

Currie's Early Education, ----- cl. 1.25 1.00 .08 

Fitch's Art of Questioning, ----- paper .15 pd 

44 Art of Securing Attention - paper .15 pd. 

44 Lectures on Teaching, - cl. 1.25 1.00 pd. 

Hughes' Mistakes in Teaching. Best edition. - cl. .50 .40 .05 

44 Securing and Retaining Attention, Bested, cl. .50 .40 .05 

♦Parker's Talks on Pedagogy. Beady Nov. '93. cl. 1.50 1.20 .12 

44 ' Talks on Teaching, - cl. 1.25 1.00 .09 

44 Practical Teacher, ----- cl. 1.50 1.20 .14 

Quick's How to Train the Memory, - paper .15 pd. 

♦Reinhart's Principles of Education, - - cl. .15 pd. 

* " Civics m Education, - cl. .25 .20 .03 
Southwick's Quiz Manual of Teaching, - - cl. .75 .«0 .05 
Yonge's Practical Work in School, - paper .15 pd. 

METHODS AND SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. 

♦Augsburg's Easy Drawings for Geog. diss, - paper .50 .40 .05 

44 Easy Things to Draw, - - - paper .30 .24 .03 

Calkins' Ear and Voice Training, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Dewey's How to Teach Manners, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Gladstone's Object Teaching, - paper .15 pd. 

Hughes' How to Keep Order, - paper .15 pd. 

Johnson's Education by Doing, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

♦Kellogg's How to Write Compositions - - paper 15 pd. 

44 Geography by Map Drawing. - - cl. .HO .40 .05 

44 School Management. - cl. .75 .go .05 



McMnrry's How to Conduct the Recitation, - paper .ir> pd. 

Patridge's Quincy Methods, Illustrated. - - cl. 1.75 1.40 .13 

i-eeley's Grube Method Teaching Arithmetic, cl. 1.00 .80 .07 

" G rube Idea in Teaching Arithmetic - cl. .30 .24 .03 

Sidgwick's .stimulus in School, - - paper .15 pd. 

Shaw and Donnell's School Devices, - - cl. 1.25 1.00 .10 

Smith's Rapid Practice Cards, - - - 32 sets, each .50 

WoodhulPs Easy Experiments in Science, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

" Home Made Apparatus, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

PRIMARY AND KINDERGARTEN 

Calkins' Ear and Voice Training, - cl. .50 .40 ,05 

Currie's Early Education, ----- e l. 1.25 1.00 .08 

Gladstone's Object Teaching, - paper .15 pd. 

Autobiography of Froebel, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Hoffman's Kindergarten Gifts, - - - - paper .15 pd. 

Johnson'd Education by Doing, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Parker's Talks on Teaching, - cl. 1.25 1.00 .09 

Patridge's Quincy Methods, - cl. 1.75 1.40 .13 

Seeley's Grube Method of Teaching Arithmetic, d. 1.00 .80 .07 

Grube Idea in Primr.ry Arithmetic, - cl. .30 .24 .03 

MANUAL TRAINING 

Cutler's Argument for Manual Training, - - paper .15 pd. 

Love's Industrial Education, - cl. 1.50 1.20 .12 

♦Upham's Fifty Lessons in Woodworking, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

QUESTION BOOKS FOR TEACHERS 

Analytical Question Series. Geography, - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

U. S. History, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

" Grammar, - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

N. T. State Examination Questions, - cl. 1.00 .80 .08 

Shaw's National Question Book, - 1.75 pd. 

Southwick's Handy Helps, ----- cl. 1.00 .80 .08 

Southwick's Quiz Manual of Teaching. Best edition, cl. .75 .60 .05 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION and SCHOOL HYGIENE 

Groff's School Hygiene, - paper .15 pd. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

♦Blaikie On Self Culture, ----- cl. .25 .20 .03 

Fitch's Improvement in Education, - - - paper .15 pd. 

Gardner's Town and Country School Buildings, cl. 2.50 2.00 .12 

Lubbock's Best 100 Books, ----- paper .*0 pd. 

Pooler's N. Y. School Law, ----- cl. .30 .24 .03 

*Walsh's Great Rulers of the World, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Wilhelm's Student's Calendar, - paper .30 .24 .03 

SINGING AND DIALOGUE BOOKS 

Reception Day Series, 6 Nos. (Set SI. 40 postpaid.) Each. .30 .24 .03 

Song Treasures. _______ paper .15 pd. 

*Best Primary Songs, new ------- .15 pd. 

SCHOOL APPARATUS 

Smith's Rapid Practice Arithmetic Cards, (32 sets). Each, .50 pd. 
"Standard " Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) Price on application. 

"Man Wonderlui" Manikin, - 5.00 pd. 
Standard Blackboard Stencils, 500 different nos., 

from 5 to 50 cents each. Send for special catalogue. 

" Unique" Pencil Sharpener, - 1.50 .10 
Standard Physician's Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) 

JJ5?~ 100 page classified, illustrated, descriptive Catalogue of the above 
and many other Method Books, Teachers' Helps, sent free. 100 puge Cat- 
lot?uo of books for teachers, of all publishers, light school apparatus, etc. 
also free. Each of these contain our special teachers' prices. 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., New York & Chicago. 



Bi 



SEND ALL ORDEUS TO 

E. L. KELLOGG <& CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 



WHAT EACH NUMBER CONTAINS. 



No. 1 

Is a specially fine number. One dia- 
logue in it, called " Work Conquers," 
for 11 girls and 6 boys, has been given 
hundreds of times, and is alone worth 
the price of the book. Then there 
are 21 other dialogues. 
29 Recitations. 
14 Declamations. 
17 Pieces for the Primary Class. 

No. 2 Contains 

29 Recitations. 
12 Declamations. 

17 Dialogues. 

24 Pieces for the Primary Class. 

And for Class Exercise as follows: 

The Bird's Party. 

Indian Names. 

Valedictory. 

Washington's Birthday. 

Garfield Memorial Day. 

Grant " " 

Whittier " 

Sigourney " " 

No. 3 Contains 

Fewer of the longer pieces and more 
of the shorter, as follows : 

18 Declamations. 

21 Recitations. 

22 Dialogues. 

24 Pieces for the Primary Class. 
A Christmas Exercise. 
Opening Ptece, and 
An Historical Celebration. 



No. 4 Contains 

Campbell Memorial Day. 
Longfellow " " 

Michael Angelo " " 
Shakespeare " " 
Washington " " 

Christmas Exercise. 
Arbor Day " 

New Planting " 
Thanksgiving k * 
Value of Knowledge Exercise. 
Also 8 other Dialogues. 
21 Recitations. 

23 Declamations. 

No. 5 Contains 

Browning Memorial Day. 
Autumn Exercise. 
Bryant Memorial Day. 
New Planting Exercise. 
Christmas Exercise. 
A Concert Exercise. 

24 Other Dialogues. 
16 Declamations, and 
36 Recitations. 

No. 6 Contains 

Spring; a flower exercise for very 

young pupils. 
Emerson Memorial Day. 
New Year's Day Exercise. 
Holmes' Memorial Day. 
Fourth of July Exercise. 
Shakespeare Memorial Day. 
Washington's Birthday Exercise. 
Also 6 other Dialogues. 
G Declamations. 
41 Recitations. 

15 Recitations for the Primary Class. 
And 4 Songs. 

Our Reception Day Series is not sold largely by booksellers, 
who, if they do not keep it, try to have you buy something else 
similar, but not so good. Therefore send direct to the publishers, 
by mail, the price as above, in stamps or postal notes, and your 
order will be filled at once. Discount for quantities. 



SPECIAL OFFER. 

If ordered at one time, we will send postpaid the entire 
6 Nos. for $1.40. Kote the reduction. 



SEND ALL ORDERS TO 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 29 



Reception Day. 6 &( os. 

A collection of fresh and original dialogues, recitations, 
declamations, and short pieces for practical use in Public 
and Private Schools. Bound in handsome, new paper 
cover, 160 pages each, printed on laid paper. Price 30 
cents each ; to teachers, 24 cents ; by mail, 3 cents extra. 

The exercises in these books bear upon education ; have a 
relation to the school-room. 

1. The dialogues, recitations, 
and declamations, gathered is» 

*. J :5M tllis volume being fresh, short, 
^r^St^WM eas y to be comprehended and 
are well fitted for the average 
scholars of our schools. 

2. They have mainly been 
used by teachers for actual 
school exercises. 

3. They cover a different 
ground from the speeches of 
Demosthenes and Cicero — 
which are unfitted for boys of 
twelve to sixteen years of age. 

4. They have some practical 
interest for those who use 
them. 

5. There is not a vicious 
sentence uttered. In some 
dialogue books profanity is 
found, or disobedience to 

new cover. parents encouraged, or lying 

laughed at. Let teachers look out for this. 

6. There is something for the youngest pupils. 

7. " Memorial Day Exercises " for Bryant, Garfield, Lincoln, 
etc., will be found. 

8. Several Tree Planting exercises are included. 

9. The exercises have relation to the school-room and bear 
upon education. 

10. An important point is the freshness of these pieces. 
Most of them were written expressly for this collection, and 
can be found nowhere else. 

Boston Journal of Education.— "Is of practical value." 
Detroit Free Press.—" Suitable for public and private schools." 
Western Ed. Journal.— " A serie s of very good selections." 




SEND ALL ORDERS TO 

K L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

Analytical Questions Series. 

No. 1. GEOGRAPHY. 126 pp. 

No. 2. HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 108 pp. 

No. 3. GRAMMAR. 104 pp. 

Price 50c. each; to teachers, 40c; by mail, 5c. extra. The three 
for $1.20, postpaid. Each complete icith answers. 

This new series of question-books is prepared for 
teachers by a teacher of high standing and wide experi- 
ence. Every possible advantage in arrangement of other 
books was adopted in these, and several very important 
new ones added. The most important is the 

GRADING OF QUESTIONS 
into three grades, thus enabling the teacher to advance 
in her knowledge by easy steps. 

THE ANALYTICAL FEATURE 
is also prominent — the questions being divided into 
paragraphs of ten each, under its appropriate heading. 
TYPOGRAPHY AND BINDING. 

Type is clear and large, and printing and paper the 
very best, while the binding is in our usual tasteful and 
durable style, in cloth. 

The books are well adapted for use in schools where 
a compact general review of the whole subject is de- 
sired. The answers have been written out in full and 
complete statements, and have been separated from the 
body of the questions with a view of enforcing and fa- 
cilitating the most profitable study of the subject. The 
author has asked every conceivable question that would 
be likely to come up in the most rigid examination. 
There are other question-books published, but even the 
largest is not so complete on a single branch as these. 

Bear in mind that these question-books are absolutely 
without a rival 

FOR PREPARING FOR EXAMINATION, 
FOR REVIEWING PUPILS IN SCHOOL, 
FOR USE AS REFERENCE BOOKS. 

The slightest examination of this series will decide 
you in its favor over any other similar books. 



SEND ALL ORDERS TO 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

— — ^— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — ■ 

Augsburg s Easy Things to Draw. 

By D. R. Augsbukg, Supt. Drawing at Salt Lake City, Utah. 
Quarto, durable and elegant cardboard cover, 80 pp., with 
31 pages of plates, containing over 200 different figures. 
Price, 30 cents; to teachers, 24 cents; by mail, 4 cents extra. 

This book is not designed to present a system of drawing. It 
is a collection of drawings made in the simplest possible way, and 
so constructed that any one may reproduce them. Its design is 
to furnish a hand-book containing drawings as would be needed 
for the school-room for object lessons, drawing lessons, busy 
work. This collection may be used in connection with any sys- 
tem of drawing, as it contains examples suitable for practice. It 
may also be used alone, as a means of learning the art of draw- 
ing. As will be seen from the above the idea of this book is new 
and novel. Those who have seen it are delighted with it as it so 
exactly fills a want. An index enables the teacher to refer in- 
stantly to a simple drawing of a cat, dog, lion, coffee-berry, etc. 
Our list of Blackboard Stencils is in the same line. 

Augsburg s Easy Drawings for the Geo- 

graphy Class. By D. R. Augsburg, B. P., author of "Easy 
Things to Draw." Contains 40 large plates, each containing 
from 4 to 60 separate drawings. 96 pp., quarto cardboard 
cover. Price 50 cents; to teachers, 40 cents; by mail 5 cents 
extra. 

In this volume is the same excellent work that was noted in Mr. 
Augsburg's "Easy Things to Draw." He does not here seek to 
present a system of drawing, but to give a collection of drawings 
made in the simplest possible way, and so constructed that any 
one may reproduce them. Leading educators believe that draw- 
ing has not occupied the position in the school course hereto- 
fore that it ought to have occupied: that it is the most effectual 
means of presenting facts, especially in the sciences. The author 
has used it in this book to illustrate geography, giving draw- 
ings of plants, animals, and natural features, and calling at- 
tention to steps in drawing. The idea is a novel one, and it is 
believed that the practical manner in which the subject is treated 
will make the book a popular one in the school-room. Each 
plate is placed opposite a lesson that may be used in connection. 
An index brings the plates instantly to the eye. 



SEND ALL ORDEBS TO 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 



41 



Song Treasures < 



THE PKICE HAS BEEN 
GHEATLY REDUCED. 



Compiled by Amos M. Kellogg, editor of the School Joui^ 
nal. Beautiful and durable postal-card rnanilla coven 
printed in two colors, G4 pp. Price, 15 cents each; to teachers, 
12- cents; by mail, 2 cents extra. 30th thousand. Write for 
oar special terms to schools for quantities. Special krmsfor use 
at Teachers' Institutes. 

Thisisamost|jjj|jj 



valuable col 
lection of mu- {I 
sic for all ' 
schools and in- 
stitutes. 

1. Most of 
the pieces have 
been selected 
by the teachers 
as favorites in 
t h e schools. 
They are the 
ones the pupils 
iove to sing. 
It contains 
nearly 100 
pieces. 

2. All the pieces " have a ring to them ;" they are easily 
learned, and will not be forgotten. 

3. The themes and words are appropriate for young people. 
In these respects the work will be found to possess unusual merit. 
Nature, the Flowers, the Seasons, the Home, our Duties, our 
Creator, are entuned with beautiful music. 

4. Great ideas may find an entrance into the mind through 
music. Aspirations for the good, the beautiful, and the true are 
presented here in a musical form. 

5. Many of the words have been written especially for the 
book. One piece, " The Voice Within Us," p. 57, is worth the 
price of the book. 

6. The titles here given show the teacher what we mean : 

Ask the Children, Beauty Everywhere, Be in Time, Cheerfulness, 
Christmas Bells, Days of Summer Glory, The Dearest Spot. Evening Song, 
Gentle Words, Going to School, Hold up the Right Hand, I Love the Merry, 
Merry Sunshine, Kind Deeds, Over in the Meadows, Our Happy School, 
Scatter the Germs of the Beautiful, Time to Walk, The Jolly Workers, Tha 
Teacher's Life, Tribute to Whittier, etc., etc. 




<S, 



let, 



